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BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL 

THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 
THE LAST FRONTIER 
GENTLEMEN ROVERS 
THE END OF THE TRAIL 
FIGHTING IN FLANDERS 
THE ROAD TO GLORY 
VIVE LA FRANCE ! 
ITALY AT WAR 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S S0N8 



THE NEW FRONTIERS 
OF FREEDOM 




THE QUEEN OF RUMANIA TELLS MAJOR POWELL THAT SHE ENJOYS 

BEING A QUEEN 



The New Frontiers 
of Freedom 

FROM THE ALPS TO THE ^GEAN 

BY 

E. ALEXANDER POWELL 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1920 






COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER's SONS 



Published April, ig20 



^^'K cii id2u 



©CI.A566779 



TO A REAL AND LIFELONG FRIEND 

MAJOR J. STANLEY MOORE 

OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE 



AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Owing to the disturbed conditions which 
prevailed throughout most of southeastern 
Europe during the summer and autumn of 
19 19, the journey recorded in the following 
pages could not have been taken had it 
not been for the active cooperation of the 
Governments through whose territories we 
traveled and the assistance afforded by their 
officials and by the officers of their armies and 
navies, to say nothing of the hospitality shown 
us by American diplomatic and consular repre- 
sentatives, relief-workers and others. From 
the Alps to the iEgean, in Italy, Dalmatia, 
Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, 
Rumania, Hungary and Serbia we met with uni- 
versal courtesy and kindness. 

For the innumerable courtesies which we 
were shown in Italy and the regions under Ital- 
ian occupation I am indebted to His Excellency 
Francisco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy, and 

vii 



viii AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

to former Premier Orlando, to General 
Armando Diaz, Commander-in-Chief of the 
Italian Armies; to Lieutenant-General Albricci, 
Minister of War; to Admiral Thaon di Revel, 
Minister of Marine; to Vice-Admiral Count 
Enrice Millo, Governor-General of Dalmatia; 
to Lieutenant-General Piacentini, Governor- 
General of Albania, to Lieutenant-General 
Montanari, commanding the Italian troops in 
Dalmatia ; to Rear-Admiral Wenceslao Piazza, 
commanding the Italian forces in the Curzo- 
lane Islands; to Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio 
Chiesa, commanding the Italian troops in 
Montenegro ; to Colonel Aldo Aymonino, Cap- 
tain Marchese Piero Ricci and Captain Ernesto 
Tron of the Comando Supremo^ the last-named 
being our companion and cicerone on a motor- 
journey of nearly three thousand miles; to Cap- 
tain Roggieri of the Royal Italian Navy, Chief 
of Staff to the Governor-General of Dalmatia ; 
to Captain Amedeo Acton, commanding the 
^^Filiherto** ; to Captain Fausto M. Leva, com- 
manding the ^^Dandolo''; to Captain Glulio 
Menin, commanding the ^'Puglia,'* and to Cap- 
tain Fillpopo, commanding the ^'Ardente'^ all 
of whom entertained us with the hospitality so 



AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT ix 

characteristic of the Italian Navy; to Lieuten- 
ant Giuseppe Castruccio, our cicerone in Rome 
and my companion on dirigible and airplane 
flights; to Lieutenant Bartolomeo Poggi and 
Engineer-Captain Alexander Ceccarelli, respec- 
tively commander and chief engineer of the 
destroyer ''Sirio/' both of whom, by their un- 
failing thoughtfulness and courtesy added im- 
measurably to the interest and enjoyment of 
our voyage down the Adriatic from Fiume to 
Valona ; to Lieutenant Pellegrini di Tondo, our 
companion on the long journey by motor across 
Albania and Macedonia; to Lieutenant Mor- 
purgo, who showed us many kindnesses during 
our stay in Salonika; to Baron San Martino of 
the Italian Peace Delegation; to Lieutenant 
Stroppa-Quaglia, attache of the Italian Peace 
Delegation, and, above all else, to those valued 
friends, Cavaliere Giuseppe Brambilla, Coun- 
selor of the Italian Embassy in Washington; 
Major-General Gugliemotti, Military Attache, 
and Professor Vittorio Falorsi, formerly Secre- 
tary of the Embassy at Washington, to each 
of whom I am indebted for countless kind- 
nesses. No list of those to whom I am in- 
debted would be complete, however, unless it 



X AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Included the name of my valued and lamented 
friend, the late Count V. Macchi di Cellere, 
Italian Ambassador to the United States, 
whose memory I shall never forget. 

I welcome this opportunity of expressing our 
appreciation of the hospitality shown us by 
their Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen 
Marie of Rumania, who entertained us at their 
Castle of Pelesch, and of acknowledging my 
Indebtedness to His Excellency M. Bratlanu, 
Prime Minister of Rumania, and to M. Con- 
stantlnescu, Rumanian Minister of Commerce. 

I am profoundly appreciative of the honor 
shown me by His Majesty King Nicholas of 
Montenegro, and my grateful thanks are also 
due to His Excellency General A. Gvosdeno- 
vltch, Aide-de-Camp to the King and former 
Minister of Montenegro to the United States. 

For the trouble to which they put themselves 
in facilitating my visit to Jugoslavia I am 
deeply grateful to His Excellency M. Grouitch, 
Minister from the Kingdom of the Serbs, 
Croats and Slovenes to the United States, and 
to His Excellency M. Vesnitch, the Jugoslav 
Minister to France. 

From the long list of our own country-people 



AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT xi 

abroad to whom we are indebted for hospital- 
ity and kindness, I wish particularly to thank 
the Honorable Thomas Nelson Page, formerly 
American Ambassador to Italy; the Honorable 
Percival Dodge, American Minister to the 
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; 
the Honorable Gabriel Bie Ravndal, American 
Commissioner and Consul-General In Constan- 
tinople; the Honorable Francis B. Keene, 
American Consul-General in Rome; Colonel 
Halsey Yates, U. S. A., American Military 
Attache at Bucharest; Lieutenant-Colonel L. 
G. Ament, U. S. A., Director of the American 
Relief Administration in Rumania, who was 
our host during our stay in Bucharest, as was 
Major Carey of the American Red Cross dur- 
ing our visit in Salonika; Dr. Frances Flood, 
Director of the American Red Cross Hospital 
in Monastir, and Mrs. Mary Halsey Moran, 
in charge of American relief work in Con- 
stantza, In whose hospitable homes we found 
a warm welcome during our stays In those 
cities; Reverend and Mrs. Phineas Kennedy of 
Koritza, Albania; Dr. Henry King, President 
of Oberlln College, and Charles R. Crane, 
Esquire, of the Commission on Mandates In the 



xii AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Near East; Dr. Fisher, Professor of Modern 
History at Robert College, Constantinople; 
and finally of three friends In Rome, Mr. 
Cortese, representative In Italy of the Asso- 
ciated Press; Dr. Webb, founder and director 
of the hospital for facial wounds at Udlne; and 
Nelson Gay, Esquire, the celebrated historian, 
all three of whom shamefully neglected their 
personal affairs in order to give me suggestions 
and assistance. 

To all of those named above, and to many 
others who are not named, I am deeply grate- 
ful. 

E. Alexander Powell. 

Yokohama, Japan, 
February, 1920. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

An Acknowledgment vil 

I Across the Redeemed Lands ... i 

II The Borderland of Slav and Latin. 56 

III The Cemetery of Four Empires . . no 

IV Under the Cross and the Crescent. 155 

V Will the Sick Man of Europe Re- 
cover.? 176 

VI What the Peace-makers Have Done 

ON THE Danube 206 

VII Making a Nation to Order . . . 243 



ZIU 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Queen of Rumania tells Major Powell that she enjoys 

being a Queen Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

His first sight of the Terra Irridenta 12 

The end of the day 20 

A little mother of the Tyrol 20 

Italy's new frontier 28 

This is not Venice, as you might suppose, but Trieste . . 46 

At the gates of Fiume 60 

The inhabitants of Fiume cheering d'Annunzio and his 

raiders 78 

His Majesty Nicholas I, King of Montenegro .... 124 

Two conspirators of Antivari 130 

The head men of Ljaskoviki, Albania, waiting to bid Major 

and Mrs. Powell farewell 142 

The ancient walls of Salonika 158 

Yildiz Kiosk, the favorite palace of Abdul-Hamid and his 

successors on the throne of Osman 194 

The Red Badge of Mercy in the Balkans 208 

The gypsy who demanded five lei for the privilege of taking 

her picture 234 

A peasant of Old Serbia 234 

King Ferdinand tells Mrs. Powell his opinion of the fashion 

in which the Peace Conference treated Rumania . . 240 

The wine-shop which is pointed out to visitors as "the 

Cradle of the War" 252 

XV 



THE NEW FRONTIERS 
OF FREEDOM 



CHAPTER I 
ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 

IT is unwise, generally speaking, to write 
about countries and peoples when they are 
in a state of political flux, for what Is true at 
the moment of writing may be misleading the 
next. But the conditions which prevailed in 
the lands beyond the Adriatic during the year 
succeeding the signing of the Armistice were 
so extraordinary, so picturesque, so wholly 
without parallel In European history, that they 
form a sort of epilogue, as it were, to the story 
of the great conflict. To have witnessed the 
dismemberment of an empire which was hoary 
with antiquity when the Republic in which we 
live was yet unborn; to have seen insignificant 
states expand almost overnight Into powerful 
nations; to have seen and talked with peoples 
who did not know from day to day the form of 
government under which they were living, or 
the name of their ruler, or the color of their 



2 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

flag; to have seen miMions of human beings 
transferred from sovereignty to sovereignty 
like cattle which have been sold — these are 
sights the like of which will probably not be 
seen again in our times or in those of our chil- 
dren, and, because they serve to illustrate a 
chapter of History which is of immense im- 
portance, I have tried to sketch them, in brief, 
sharp outline, in this book. 

Because I was curious to see for myself how 
the countrymen of Andreas Hofer in South 
Tyrol would accept their enforced ItaHaniza- 
tion; whether the Italians of Fiume would obey 
the dictum of President Wilson that their city 
must be Slav; how the Turks of Smyrna and 
the Bulgarians of Thrace would welcome Hel- 
lenic rule ; whether the Croats and Slovenes and 
Bosnians and Montenegrins were content to re- 
main pasted in the Jugoslav stamp-album; and 
because I wished to travel through these dis- 
puted regions while the conditions and problems 
thus created were still new, we set out, my wife 
and I, at about the time the Peace Conference 
was drawing to a close, on a journey, made 
largely by motor-car and destroyer, which took 
us from the Adige to the Vardar and from the 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 3 

Vardar to the Pruth, along more than five thou- 
sand miles of those new national boundaries — 
drawn in Paris by a lawyer, a doctor and a 
college professor — which have been termed, 
with undue optimism perhaps, the frontiers of 
freedom. 

Some of the things which I shall say in these 
pages win probably give offense to those gov- 
ernments which showed us many courtesies. 
Those who are privileged to speak for govern- 
ments are fond of asserting that their govern- 
ments have nothing to conceal and that they 
welcome honest criticism, but long experience 
has taught me that when they are told unpalata- 
ble truths governments are usually as sensitive 
and resentful as friends. Now it has always 
seemed to me that a writer owes his first allegi- 
ance to his readers. To misinform them by 
writing only half-truths for the sake of retain- 
ing the good-will of those written about is as 
unethical, to my way of thinking, as It is for a 
newspaper to suppress facts which the public is 
entitled to know in order not to offend its ad- 
vertisers. Were I to show my appreciation of 
the many kindnesses which we received from 
governments, sovereigns and officials by re- 



4 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

framing from unfavorable comment on their 
actions and their policies, this book would pos- 
sess about as much intrinsic value as those 
sumptuous volumes which are written to the 
order of certain Latin-American republics, in 
which the authors studiously avoid touching on 
such embarrassing subjects as revolutions, as- 
sassinations, earthquakes, finances, or fevers for 
fear of scaring away foreign investors or de- 
preciating the government securities. 

It is entirely possible that In forming some 
of my conclusions I was unconsciously biased 
by the hospitality and kindness we were shown, 
for It Is human nature to have a more friendly 
feeling for the man who invites you to dinner 
or sends you a card to his club than for the 
man who ignores your existence ; it Is probable 
that I not infrequently placed the wrong Inter- 
pretation on what I saw and heard, especially 
In the Balkans; and, in those cases where I 
have rashly ventured to Indulge in prophecy, 
it Is more than likely that future events will 
show that as a prophet I am not an unquahfied 
success. In spite of these shortcomings, how- 
ever, I would like my readers to believe that 
I have made a conscientious effort to place be- 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 5, 

fore them, in the following pages, a plain and 
unprejudiced account of how the essays in map- j 
making of the lawyer, the doctor and the col- i 
lege professor in Paris have affected the peo- j 
pies, problems and politics of that vast region 
which stretches from the Alps to the ^Egean. 

The Queen of the Adriatic never looked 
more radiantly beautiful than on the July morn- 
ing when, from the landing-stage in front of the 
Danieli, we boarded the vapore which, after an 
hour^s steaming up the teeming Guidecca and 
across the outlying lagoons, set us down at the 
road-head, on the mainland, where young Cap- 
tain Tron, of the Comando Supremo, was 
awaiting us with a big gray staff-car. Captain 
Tron, who had been born on the Riviera and 
spoke English like an Oxonian, had been aide- 
de-camp to the Prince of Wales during that 
young gentleman's prolonged stay on the Italian 
front. He was selected by the Italian High 
Command to accompany us, I imagine, because 
of his ability to give intelligent answers to every 
conceivable sort of question, his tact, and his un- 
failing discretion. His chief weakness was his 
proclivity for road-burning, in which he was 
enthusiastically abetted by our Sicilian chauffeur. 



6 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

who, before attaining to the dignity of driving 
a staff-car, had spent an apprenticeship of two 
years in piloting ammunition-laden camions over 
the narrow and perilous roads which led to 
the positions held by the Alpini amid the higher 
peaks, during which he learned to save his tires 
and his brake-linings by taking on two wheels 
instead of four the hairpin mountain turns. 
Now I am perfectly willing to travel as fast 
as any one, if necessity demands it, but to tear 
through a region as beautiful as Venetia at sixty 
miles an hour, with the incomparable landscape 
whirling past in a confused blur, like a motion- 
picture film which is being run too fast because 
the operator is In a hurry to get home, seems 
to me as unintelligent as it is unnecessary. Like 
all Itahan drivers, moreover, our chauffeur In- 
sisted on keeping his cut-out wide open, thereby 
producing a racket like a machine-gun, which, 
though It gave warning of our approach when 
we were still a mile away, made any attempt at 
conversation, save by shouting, out of the ques- 
tion. 

Because I wished to follow Italy's new fron- 
tiers from their very beginning, at that point 
where the boundaries of Italy, Austria and 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 7 

Switzerland meet near the Stelvio Pass, our 
course from Venice lay northwestward, across 
the dusty plains of Venetia, shimmering in the 
summer heat, the low, pleasant-looking villas of 
white or pink or sometimes pale blue stucco, 
set far back in blazing gardens, peering coyly 
out at us from between the ranks of stately 
cypresses which lined the highway, like daintily- 
gowned girls seeking an excuse for a flirtation. 
Dotting the Venetian plain are many quaint and 
charming towns of whose existence the tourist, 
traveling by train, never dreams, their massive 
walls, sometimes defended by moats and draw- 
bridges, bearing mute witness to this region's 
stormy and romantic past. Towering above 
the red-tiled roofs of each of these Venetian 
plain-towns is its slender campanile, and, as 
each campanile is of distinctive design, it serves 
as a landmark by which the town can be identi- 
fied from afar. Through the narrow, cobble- 
paved streets of Vicenza we swept, between 
rows of shops opening into cool, dim, vaulted 
porticoes, where the townspeople can lounge 
and stroll and gossip without exposing them- 
selves to rain or sun; through Rovereto, noted 
for its silk-culture and for its old, old houses. 



8 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

superb examples of the domestic architecture 
of the Middle Ages, with faded frescoes on 
their quaint f agades ; and so up the rather mo- 
notonous and uninteresting valley of the Adige 
until, just as the sun was sinking behind the 
Adamello, whose snowy flanks were bathed in 
the rosy Alpenglow, we came roaring into 
Trent, the capital and center of the Trentino, 
which, together with Trieste and its adjacent 
territory, composed the regions commonly re- 
ferred to by Italians before the war as Italia 
Irredenta — Unredeemed Italy. 

Rooms had been reserved for us at the Hotel 
Trento, a famous tourist hostelry in pre-war 
days, which had been used as headquarters by 
the field-marshal commanding the Austrian 
forces In the Trentino, signs of its military oc- 
cupation being visible in the scratched wood- 
work and ruined upholstery. The spurs of the 
Austrian staff officers on duty in Trent, as 
Major Rupert Hughes once remarked of the 
American staff officers on duty in Washington, 
must have been dripping with furniture polish. 

Trent — or Trento, as its new owners call 
it — is a place of some 30,000 inhabitants, built 
on both banks of the Adige, in the center of 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 9 

a great bowl-shaped valley which is completely 
hemmed In by towering mountain walls. In the 
church of Santa Maria Magglore the celebrated 
Council of Trent sat in the middle of the six- 
teenth century for nearly a decade. On the 
eastern side of the town rises the imposing Cas- 
tello del Buon Consigllo, once the residence of 
the Prince-Bishops but now a barracks for Ital- 
ian soldiery. 

No one who knows Trent can question the 
justice of Italy's claims to the city and to the 
rich valleys surrounding It, for the history, the 
traditions, the language, the architecture and 
the art of this region are as characteristically 
Italian as though it had never been outside the 
confines of the kingdom. The system of mild 
and fertile Alpine valleys which compose the 
so-called Trentino have an area of about 4,000 
square miles and support a population of 380,- 
000 inhabitants, of whom 375,000, according 
to a census made by the Austrians themselves, 
are Italian. An enclave between Lombardy and 
Venetia, a rough triangle with its southern apex 
at the head of the Lake of Garda, the Trentino, 
originally settled by Italian colonists who went 
forth as early as the time of the Roman Re- 



10 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

public, was for centuries an independent Italian 
prince-bishopric, being arbitrarily annexed to 
Austria upon the fall of Napoleon. In spite 
of the tyrannical and oppressive measures pur- 
sued by the Austrian authorities in their at- 
tempts to stamp out the affection of the Tren- 
tini for their Italian motherland, in spite of the 
systematic attempts to Germanicize the region, 
in spite of the fact that it was an offense punish- 
able by imprisonment to wear the Italian colors, 
to sing the Italian national hymn, or to have 
certain Italian books in their possession, the 
poor peasants of these mountain valleys re- 
mained unswervingly loyal to Italy throughout 
a century of persecution. Little did the thou- 
sands of American and British tourists who 
were wont to make of the Trentino a summer 
playground, climbing its mountains, fishing in 
its rivers, motoring over its superb highways, 
stopping in Its great hotels, realize the silent 
but desperate struggle which was in progress 
between this handful of Italian exiles and the 
empire of the Hapsburgs. 

The attitude of the Austrian authorities to- 
ward their unwilling subjects of the Trentino 
was characterized by a vindictlveness as savage 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS ii 

as It was shortsighted. Like the Germans In 
Alsace, they made the mistake of thinking that 
they could secure the loyalty of the people by 
awing and terrorizing them, whereas these 
methods had the effect of hardening the de- 
termination of the TrentinI to rid themselves 
of Austrian rule. Caesare BattlstI was deputy 
from Trent to the parliament In Vienna. When 
war was declared he escaped from Austria and 
enlisted In the Italian army, precisely as hun- 
dreds of American colonists joined the Conti- 
nental Army upon the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion. During the first Austrian offensive he 
was captured and sentenced to death, being ex- 
ecuted while still suffering from his wounds. 
The fact that the rope parted twice beneath his 
weight added the final touch to the brutality 
which marked every stage of the proceeding. 
The execution of Battlsta provided a striking 
object-lesson for the Inhabitants of the Tren- 
tlno and of Italy — ^but not the sort of object- 
lesson which the Austrlans had Intended. In- 
stead of terrifying them, it but fired them In 
their determination to end that sort of thing 
forever. From Lombardy to Sicllly Battlsta 
was acclaimed a hero and a martyr; photo- 



12 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

graphs of him on his way to execution — an 
erect and dignified figure, a dramatic contrast 
to the shambling, sullen-faced soldiery who sur- 
rounded him — were displayed in every shop- 
window in the kingdom; all over Italy streets 
and parks and schools were named to perpetu- 
ate his memory. 

Had there been in my mind a shadow of 
doubt as to the justice of Italy's annexation 
of the Trentino, it would have been dissipated 
when, after dinner, we stood on the balcony of 
the hotel in the moonlight, looking down on 
the great crowd which filled to overflowing the 
brilliantly lighted piazza. A military band was 
playing Garibaldi's Hymn and the people stood 
In silence, as in a church, the faces of many of 
them wet with tears, while the familiar strains, 
forbidden by the Austrian under penalty of 
Imprisonment, rose triumphantly on the eve- 
ning air to be echoed by the encircling moun- 
tains. At last the exiles had come home. And 
from his marble pedestal, high above the multi- 
tude, the great statue of Dante looked serenely 
out across the valleys and the mountains which 
are "unredeemed" no longer. 

Though Italy's original claims in this region, 




w 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 13 

as made at the beginning of the war, included 
only the so-called Trentino (by which Is gener- 
ally meant those Italian-speaking districts which 
used to belong to the bishopric of Trent) to- 
gether with those parts of South Tyrol which 
are in population overwhelmingly Italian, she 
has since demanded, and by the Peace Confer- 
ence has been awarded, the territory known as 
the upper Adige, which comprises all the dis- 
tricts lying within the basin of the Adige and 
of Its tributary, the Isarco, including the cities 
of Botzen and Meran. By the annexation of 
this region Italy has pushed her frontier as far 
north as the Brenner, thereby bringing within 
her borders upwards of 180,000 German-speak- 
ing Tyrolese who have never been Italian In 
any sense and who bitterly resent being trans- 
ferred, without their consent and without a ple- 
biscite, to Italian rule. 

The Italians defend their annexation of the 
Upper Adige by asserting that Italy's true 
northern boundary. In the words of Eugene de 
Beauharnals, written, when Viceroy of Italy, 
to his stepfather. Napoleon, "is that traced by 
Nature on the summits of the mountains, where 
the waters that flow Into the Black Sea are dl- 



14 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

vided from those that flow into the Adriatic." 
Viewed from a purely geographical standpoint, 
Italy's contention that the great semi-circular 
barrier of the Alps forms a natural and clearly 
defined frontier, separating her by a clean-cut 
line from the countries to the north, is unques- 
tionably a sound one. Any one who has entered 
Italy from the north must have instinctively 
felt, as he reached the summit of this mighty 
mountain wall and looked down on the warm 
and fertile slopes sweeping southward to the 
plains, *'Here Italy begins." 

Italy further justifies her annexation of the 
German-speaking Upper Adige on the ground 
of national security. She must, she insists, pos- 
sess henceforward a strong and easily defended 
northern frontier. She is tired of crouching in 
the valleys while her enemies dominate her from 
the mountain-tops. Nor do I blame her. Her 
whole history is punctuated by raids and in- 
vasions launched from these northern heights. 
But the new frontier, in the words of former 
Premier Orlando, "can be defended by a hand- 
ful of men, while therefore the defense of the 
Trentino salient required half the Italian forces, 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 15 

the other half being constantly threatened with 
envelopment." 

As I have already pointed out, the annexation 
of the Upper Adige means the passing of 180,- 
000 German-speaking Austrians under Italian 
sovereignty, including the cities of Botzen and 
Meran; the ancient centers of German-Alpine 
culture, Brixen and Sterzing; of Schloss Tyrol, 
which gives the whole country its name; and, 
above all, of the Parsier valley, the home of 
Andreas Hofer, whose life and living memory 
provide the same inspiration for the Germans 
of Tyrol that the exploits and traditions of 
Garibaldi do for the Italians. 

That Italy is not insensible to the perils of 
bringing within her borders a bloc of people 
who are not and never will be Italian, Is clearly 
shown by the following extract from an Italian 
official publication: 

''In claiming the Upper Adige, Italy does not 
forget that the highest valleys are inhabited by 
180,000 Germans, a residuum from the immi- 
gration in the Middle Ages. It is not a prob- 
lem to be taken light-heartedly, but It Is im- 
possible for Italy to limit herself only to the 
Trentino, as that would not give her a satis- 



1 6 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

factory military frontier. From that point of 
view, the basin of Bolzano (Bozen) is as strict- 
ly necessary to Italy as the Rhine is to France." 
No one has been more zealous in the cause 
of Italy than I have been; no one has been 
more whole-heartedly with the Italians in their 
splendid efforts to recover the lands to which 
they are justly entitled; no one more thoroughly 
realizes the agonies of apprehension which Italy 
has suffered from the Insecurity of her north- 
ern borders, or has been more keenly alive to 
the grim but silent struggle which has been 
waged between her statesmen and her soldiers 
as to whether the broad statesmanship which 
aims at international good-feeling and abstract 
justice, or the narrower and more selfish policy 
dictated by military necessity, should govern the 
delimitation of her new frontiers. But, because 
I am a friend of Italy, and because I wish her 
well, I view with grave misgivings the wisdom 
of thus creating, within her own borders, a new 
terra irredenta; I question the quality of states- 
manship which insists on Including within the 
Italian body politic an alien and irreconcilable 
minority which will probably always be a latent 
source of trouble, one which may, as the result 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 17 

of some unforseen irritation, break into an 
open sore. It would seem to me that 
Italy, in annexing the Upper Adige, is storing 
up for herself precisely the same troubles which 
Austria did when she held against their will the 
Italians of the Trentino, or as Germany did 
when, in order to give herself a strategic fron- 
tier, she annexed Alsace and Lorraine. When 
Italy puts forward the argument that she must 
hold everything up to the Brenner because of 
her fear of invasion by the puny and bankrupt 
little state which is all that is left of the Aus- 
trian Empire, she is but weakening her case. 
Her soundest excuse for the annexation of this 
region lies in her fear that a reconstituted and 
revengeful Germany might some day use the 
Tyrol as a gateway through which to launch 
new armies of invasion and conquest. But, no 
matter what her friends may think of the wis- 
dom or justice of Italy's course, her annexation 
of the Upper Adige is a fait accompli which is 
not likely to be undone. Whether it will prove 
an act of wisdom or of shortsightedness only 
the future can tell. 

The transition from the Italian Trentino to 
the German Tyrol begins a few miles south of 



1 8 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Bozen. Perhaps "occurs" would be a more 
descriptive word, for the change from the Lat- 
in to the Teutonic, instead of being gradual, 
as one would expect, is almost startling in its 
abruptness. In the space of a single mile or 
so the language of the inhabitants changes from 
the liquid accents of the Latin to the deep- 
throated gutturals of the German; the road 
signs and those on the shops are now printed 
in quaint German script; via becomes we^, 
strada becomes strasse, instead of responding 
to your salutation with a smiling *^Bon giorno** 
the peasants give you a solemn ^'Guten morgenJ* 
Even the architecture changes, the slender, four- 
square campaniles surmounted by bulging By- 
zantine domes, so characteristic of the Tren- 
tino, giving place to pointed steeples faced with 
colored slates or tiles. On the German side 
the towns are better kept, the houses better 
built, the streets wider and cleaner than in the 
Italian districts. Instead of the low, white- 
walled, red-tiled dwellings so characteristic of 
Italy, the houses begin to assume the aspect 
of Alpine chalets, with carved wooden balconies 
and steep-pitched roofs to prevent the settling 
of the winter snows. The plastered fagades of 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 19 

many of the houses are decorated with gaudily 
colored frescoes, nearly always of Biblical char- 
acters or scenes, so that In a score of miles the 
traveler has had the whole story of the Scrip- 
tures spread before him. They are a deeply 
religious people, these Tyrolean peasants, as Is 
evidenced not only by the many handsome 
churches and the character of the wall-paintings 
on the houses, but by the amazing frequency 
of the wayside shrines, most of which consist 
of representations of various phases of the 
Crucifixion, usually carved and painted with a 
most harrowing fidelity of detail. Occasionally 
we encountered groups of peasants wearing the 
picturesque velvet jackets, tight knee-breeches, 
heavy woolen stockings and beribboned hats 
which one usually associates with the Tyrolean 
yodelers who still inflict themselves on vaude- 
ville audiences in the United States. As we 
sped northward the landscape changed with the 
inhabitants, the sunny Italian countryside, 
ablaze with flowers and green with vineyards, 
giving way to solemn forests, gloomy defiles, 
and crags surmounted by grim, gray castles 
which reminded me of the stage-settings for 
*'Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin.'' 



20 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Seen from the summit of the Mendel Pass, 
the road from Trent to Bozen looks like a lariat 
thrown carelessly upon the ground. It climbs 
laboriously upward, through splendid evergreen 
forests, in countless curves and spirals, loiters 
for a few-score yards beside the margin of a 
tiny crystal lake, and then, refreshed, plunges 
downward, in a series of steep white zigzags, 
to meet the Isarco, In whose company it enters 
Bozen. Because the car, like ourselves, was 
thirsty, we stopped at the summit of the pass 
at the tiny hamlet of Madonna di Campiglio — 
Our Lady of the Fields — for water and for 
tea. Should you have occasion to go that way, 
I hope that you will take time to stop at the 
unpretentious little Hotel Neumann. It is the 
sort of Tyrolean inn which had, I supposed, 
gone out of existence with the war. The inn- 
keeper, a jovial, white-whiskered fellow, such 
as one rarely finds off the musical comedy stage, 
served us with tea — with rum in it — and hot 
bread with honey, and heaping dishes of small 
wild strawberries, and those pastries which the 
Viennese used to make in such perfection. 
There were five of us, including the chauffeur 
and the orderly, and for the food which we 




X 3 



c ° 







• i :^ n|«^_.iiiiiiBin ij 



^! 




o 

> 

H 

W 
K 
H 

O 



CI s 



»»- 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 21 

consumed I think that the Innkeeper charged 
the equivalent of a dollar. But, as he explained 
apologetically, the war had raised prices ter- 
ribly. We were the first visitors, it seemed, 
barring Austrians and a few Italian officers, 
who had visited his inn in nearly five years. 
Both of his sons had been killed in the war, 
he told us, fighting bravely with their Jaeger 
battalion. The widow of one of his sons — I 
saw her; a sweet-faced Austrian girl — with her 
child, had come to live with him, he said. Yes, 
he was an old man, both of his boys were dead, 
his little business had been wrecked, the old 
Emperor Franz-Joseph — ^yes, we could see his 
picture over the fireplace within — had gone and 
the new Emperor Karl was In exile, in Switzer- 
land, he had heard; even the Empire in which 
he had lived, boy and man, for seventy-odd 
years, had disappeared; the whole world was. 
Indeed, turned upside down — but. Heaven be 
praised, he had a little grandson who would 
grow up to carry the business on. 

"How do you feel," I asked the old man, 
"about Italian rule?" 

"They are not our own people," he answered 
slowly. "Their language Is not our language 



22 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

and their ways are not our ways. But they are 
not an unkind nor an unjust people and I think 
that they mean to treat us fairly and well. Aus- 
tria is very poor, I hear, and could do nothing 
for us if she would. But Italy is young and 
strong and rich and the officers who have 
stopped here tell me that she is prepared to do 
much to help us. Who knows? Perhaps it is 
all for the best.'* 

Immediately beyond Madonna di Campiglio 
the highway begins its descent from the pass 
in a series of appallingly sharp turns. Hardly 
had we settled ourselves in the tonneau before 
the Sicilian, impatient to be gone, stepped on 
the accelerator and the big Lancia, flinging it- 
self over the brow of the hill, plunged headlong 
for the first of these hairpin turns. "Slow up !" 
I shouted. "Slow up or you'll have us over 
the edge!" As the driver's only response to 
my command was to grin at us reassuringly over 
his shoulder, I looked about for a soft place 
to land. But there was only rock-plated high- 
way whizzing past and on the outside the road 
dropped sheer away into nothingness. We took 
the first turn with the near-side wheels in the 
gutter, the off-side wheels on the bank, and the 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 23 

car tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. The 
second bend we navigated at an angle of sixty 
degrees, the off-side wheels on the bank, the 
near-side wheels pawing thin air. Had there 
been another bend Immediately following we 
should have accomplished It upside down. For- 
tunately there were no more for the moment, 
but there remained the village street of Cles. 
We pounced upon It like a tiger on Its prey. 
Shrining, roaring and honking, we swooped 
through the ancient town, zigzagging from curb 
to curb. The great-great-grandam of the vil- 
lage was tottering across the street when the 
blast of the Lancla's siren pierced the deafness 
of a century and she sprang for the sidewalk 
with the agUIty of a young gazelle. We missed 
her by half an Inch, but at the next corner we 
had better luck and killed a chicken. 

Meran — ^the Italians have changed Its official 
name to Merano, just as they have changed 
Trent to Trento, and Bozen to Bolzano — has 
always appealed to me as one of the most 
charming and restful little towns In Europe. 
The last time I had been there, before the war- 
cloud darkened the land. Its streets were lined 
with powerful touring cars bearing the license- 



24 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

plates of half the countries in Europe, bands 
played in the parks, the shady promenade be- 
side the river was crowded with pleasure-seek- 
ers, and its great tourist hostelries — there were 
said to be upwards of 150 hotels and pensions 
in the town — were gay with laughter and music. 
But this time all was changed. Most of the 
large hotels were closed, the streets were de- 
serted, the place was as dismal as a cemetery. 
It reminded me of a beautiful house which has 
been closed because of its owner's financial re- 
verses, the servants discharged, the windows 
boarded up, the furniture swathed in linen cov- 
ers, the carpets and hangings packed away in 
mothballs, and the gardens overrun with weeds. 
At the Hotel Savoy, where rooms had been re- 
served for us, it was necessary, in pre-war days, 
to wire for accommodations a fortnight in ad- 
vance of your arrival, and even then you were 
not always able to get rooms. Yet we were 
the only visitors, barring a handful of Italian 
commercial travelers and the Italian governor- 
general and his staff. The proprietor, an Aus- 
trian, told me that in the four years of war 
he had lost $300,000, and that he, like his col- 
leagues, was running his hotel on borrowed 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 25 

money. Of the pre-war visitors to Meran, 
eighty per cent, had been Germans, he told me, 
adding that he could see no prospect of the 
town's regaining its former prosperity until Ger- 
many is on her financial feet again. Personally, 
I think that he and the other hoteliers and 
business men with whom I talked in Meran 
were rather more pessimistic than the situation 
warranted, for, if Italy will have the foresight 
to do for these new playgrounds of hers in the 
Alps even a fraction of what she has done for 
her resorts on the Riviera, and in Sicily, and 
along the Neapolitan littoral, if she will ad- 
vertise and encourage and assist them, if she 
will maintain their superb roads and improve 
their railway communications, then I believe 
that a few years, a very few, will see them 
thronged by even greater crowds of visitors 
than before the war. And the fact that in the 
future there will be more American, English, 
French and Italian visitors, and fewer Germans, 
will make South Tyrol a far pleasanter place to 
travel in. 

The Italians are fully alive to the gravity 
of the problems which confront them in at- 
tempting to assimilate a body of people, as 



26 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

courageous, as sturdily independent, and as te- 
nacious of their traditional independence as 
these Tyrolean mountaineers — descendants of 
those peasants, remember, who, led by Andreas 
Hofer, successfully defied the dictates of Na- 
poleon. Though I think that she is going about 
the business of assimilating these unwilling sub- 
jects with tact and common sense, I do not envy 
Italy her task. Generally speaking, the sym- 
pathy of the world is always with a weak people 
as opposed to a strong one, as England dis- 
covered when she attempted to impose her rule 
upon the Boers. Once let the Italian adminis- 
tration of the Upper Adige permit itself to be 
provoked into undue harshness (and there will 
be ample provocation; be certain of that) ; once 
let an impatient and over-zealous governor-gen- 
eral attempt to bend these stubborn mountain- 
eers too abruptly to his will; let the local Italian 
officials provide the slightest excuse for charjges 
of injustice or oppression, and Italy will have 
on her hands in Tyrol far graver troubles than 
those brought on by her adventure in Tripoli- 
tania. 

Though the Government has announced that 
Italian must become the official language of the 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 27 

newly acquired region, and that used In its 
schools, no attempt will be made to root out 
the German tongue or to tamper with the local 
usages and customs. The upper valleys, where 
German is spoken, will not, however, enjoy any 
form of local autonomy which would tend to 
set their inhabitants apart from those of the 
lower valleys, for it is realized that such differ- 
ential treatment would only serve to retard 
the process of unification. All of the new dis- 
tricts, German and Italian-speaking alike, will 
be included In the new province of Trent. It 
Is entirely probable that Italy's German-speak- 
ing subjects of the present generation will 
prove, If not actually Irreconcilable, at least 
mistrustful and resentful, but, by adhering to 
a policy of patience, sympathy, generosity and 
tact, I can see no reason why the next genera- 
tion of these mountaineers should not prove as 
loyal Italians as though their fathers had been 
born under the cross of the House of Savoy in- 
stead of under the double-eagle of the Haps- 
burgs. 

We crossed the Line of the Armistice into 
Austria an hour or so beyond Meran, the road 
being barred at this point by a swinging beam. 



28 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

made from the trunk of a tree, which could 
be swung aside to permit the passage of vehi- 
cles, like the bar of an old-fashioned country 
toll-gate. Close by was a rude shelter, built of 
logs, which provided sleeping quarters for the 
half-company of infantry engaged in guarding 
the pass. One has only to cross the new fron- 
tier to understand why Italy was so desperately 
insistent on a strategic rectification of her north- 
ern boundary, for whereas, before the war, the 
frontier ran through the valleys, leaving the 
Austrians atop the mountain wall, it is now the 
Italians who are astride the wall, with the Aus- 
trians in the valleys below. 

No sooner had we crossed the Line of the 
Armistice than we noticed an abrupt change in 
the attitude of the population. Even in the 
German-speaking districts of the Trentino the 
inhabitants with whom we had come in contact 
had been courteous and respectful, though 
whether this was because of, or in spite of, the 
fact that we were traveling in a military car, 
accompanied by a staff-officer, I do not know. 
Now that we were actually in Austria, however, 
this atmosphere of seeming friendliness entirely 
disappeared, the men staring insolently at us 




ITALY'S NEW FRONTIER 
A sharp turn on the highroad over the Brenner Pass 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 29 

from under scowling brows, while the women 
and children, who had less to fear and conse- 
quently were bolder in expressing their feelings, 
frequently shouted uncomplimentary epithets 
at us or shook their fists as we passed. 

Under the terms of the Armistice, Innsbruck, 
the capital of Tyrol, was temporarily occupied 
by the Italians, who sent into the city a com- 
paratively small force, consisting in the main of 
Alpini and Bersaglieri. Innsbruck was one of 
the proudest cities of the Austrian Empire, its 
inhabitants being noted for their loyalty to the 
Hapsburgs, yet I did not observe the slightest 
sign of resentment toward the Italian soldiers, 
who strolled the streets and made purchases in 
the shops as unconcernedly as though they were 
in Milan or Rome. The Italians, on their part, 
showed the most marked consideration for the 
sensibilities of the population, displaying none 
of the hatred and contempt for their former 
enemies which characterized the French armies 
of occupation on the Rhine. 

We found that rooms had been reserved for 
us at the Tyroler Hof, before the war one of 
the famous tourist hostelrles of Europe, half 
of which had been taken over by the Italian 



30 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

general commanding in the Innsbruck district 
and his staff. Food was desperately scarce in 
Innsbruck when we were there and, had it not 
been for the courtesy of the Italian commander 
in sending us in dishes from his mess, we would 
have had great difficulty in getting enough to 
eat. A typical dinner at the Tyroler Hof in 
the summer of 19 19 consisted of a mud-colored, 
nauseous-looking liquid which was by courtesy 
called soup, a piece of fish perhaps four times 
the size of a postage-stamp, a stew which was 
alleged to consist of rabbit and vegetables but 
which, from its taste and appearance, might con- 
tain almost anything, a salad made of beets or 
watercress, but without oil, and for dessert a 
dish of wild berries, which are abundant in 
parts of Tyrol. There was an extra charge 
for a small cup of black coffee, so-called, which 
was made, I imagine, from acorns. This, of 
course, was at the best and highest-priced hotels 
in Innsbruck; at the smaller hotels the food was 
correspondingly scarcer and poorer. 

Though the inhabitants of the rural districts 
appeared to be moderately well fed, a majority 
of the people of Innsbruck were manifestly in 
urgent need of food. Some of them, indeed, 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 31 

were in a truly pitable condition, with emaci- 
ated bodies, sunken cheeks, unhealthy com- 
plexions, and shabby, badly worn clothes. The 
meager displays in the shop-windows were a 
pathetic contrast to variety and abundance 
which characterized them in ante-bellum days, 
the only articles displayed in any profusion be- 
ing picture-postcards, objects carved from wood 
and similar souvenirs. The windows of the 
confectionery and bake-shops were particularly 
noticeable for the paucity of their contents. I 
was induced to enter one of them by a brave 
window display of hand-decorated candy boxes, 
but, upon investigation, it proved that the boxes 
were empty and that the shop had had no candy 
for four years. The prices of necessities, such 
as food and clothing, were fantastic (I saw ad- 
vertisements of stout, all-leather boots for rent 
to responsible persons by the day or week), but 
articles of a purely luxurious character could be 
had for almost anything one was willing to offer. 
In one shop I was shown German field-glasses 
of high magnification and the finest makes for 
ten and fifteen dollars a pair. The local jewel- 
ers were driving a brisk trade with the Italian 
soldiers, who were lavish purchasers of Aus- 



32 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

trian war medals and decorations. Captain 
Tron bought an Iron Cross of the second class 
for the equivalent of thirty cents. 

We left Innsbruck in the early morning with 
the intention of spending that night at Cortina 
d'Ampezzo, but, owing to our unfamiliarity 
with the roads and to delays due to tire trou- 
ble, nightfall found us lost in the Dolomites. 
For mile after mile we pushed on through the 
darkness along the narrow, slippery mountain 
roads, searching for a shelter in which to pass 
the night. Occasionally the twin beams from 
our lamps would illumine a building beside the 
road and we, chilled and hungry, would ex- 
claim "A house at last!" only to find, upon 
drawing nearer, that, though it had evidently 
been once a habitation, it was now but a shat- 
tered, blackened shell, a grim testimonial to the 
accuracy of Austrian and Italian gunners. It 
was late in the evening and bitterly cold, before, 
rounding a shoulder of the mountain up whose 
steep gradients the car seemed to have been 
panting for ages, we saw in the distance the 
welcome lights of the hamlet of Santa Lucia. 

I do not think that the public has the slight- 
est conception of the widespread destruction 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 33 

and misery wrought by the war in these Alpine 
regions. In nearly a hundred miles of motor- 
ing In the Cadore, formerly one of the most 
delightful summer playgrounds In all Europe, 
we did not pass a single building with a whole 
roof or an unshattered wall. The hospitable 
wayside Inns, the quaint villages, the pictur- 
esque peasant cottages which the tourist In this 
region knew and loved are but blackened ruins 
now. And the people are gone too — refugees, 
no doubt, In the camps which the Government 
has erected for them near the larger towns. 
One no longer hears the tinkle of cow-bells on 
the mountain slopes, peasants no longer wave 
a friendly greeting from ^heir doors: it is a 
stricken and deserted land. But Cortina d'Am- 
pezzo, which Is the cheflieu of the Cadore, 
though still showing many traces of the shell- 
storms which it has survived, was quickening 
into life. The big tourist hotels at either end 
of the town, behind which the Italians emplaced 
their heavy guns, were being refurnished in 
anticipation of the resumption of summer travel 
and the little shops where they sell souvenirs 
were reopening, one by one. But the losses 
suffered by the inhabitants of these Alpine 



34 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

valleys, desperately serious as they are to them, 
are, after all, but insignificant when compared 
with the enormous havoc wrought by the ar- 
mies in the thickly settled Friuli and on the rich 
Venetian plains. Every one knows, presumably, 
that Italy had to draw more heavily upon her 
resources than any other country among the 
Allies (did you know that she spent in the war 
more than four-fifths of her total national 
wealth?) and that she Is bowed down under an 
enormous load of taxation and a staggering 
burden of debt. But what has been largely 
overlooked is that she is faced by the necessity 
of rebuilding a vast devasated area, in which 
the conditions are quite as serious, the need 
of assistance fully as urgent, as in the devas- 
tated regions of Belgium and France. 

Probably you were not aware that a terri- 
tory of some three and a half million acres, 
occupied by nearly a million and a half people, 
was overrun by the Austrlans. More than one- 
half of Venetia is comprised in that region ly- 
ing east of the Piave where the wave of Hun- 
nish invasion broke with its greatest fury. The 
whole of Udine and Belluno, and parts of Tre- 
viso, Vicenza and Venice suffered the penalty 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 35 

of standing in the path of the Hun. They 
were prosperous provinces, agriculturally and 
Industrially, but now both Industry and agricul- 
ture are almost at a standstill, for their fac- 
tories have been burned, their machinery 
wrecked or stolen, their livestock driven off and 
their vineyards destroyed. The damage done 
is estimated at 500 million dollars. It is un- 
necessary for me to emphasize the seriousness 
of the problem which thus confronts the Italian 
Government. Not only must it provide food 
and shelter for the homeless — a problem which 
it has solved by the erection of great numbers 
of wooden huts somewhat similar to the bar- 
racks at the American cantonments — but a great 
amount of livestock and machinery must be sup- 
plied before industry can be resumed. At one 
period there was such desperate need of fuel 
that even the olive trees, one of the region's 
chief sources of revenue, were sacrificed. The 
Italians have set about the task of regenera- 
tion with an energy that discouragement cannot 
check. But the undertaking is more than Italy 
can accomplish unaided, for the resources of 
her other provinces are seriously depleted. We 
are fond of talking of the debt we owe to Italy, 



36 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

not merely for her sacrifices in the war, but for 
all that she has given us in art and music and 
literature. Now is the time to show our grati- 
tude. 

From Cortina, which is Italian now, we 
swung toward the north again, re-crossed the 
Line of the Armistice at Tarvis, and, just as 
night was falling, came tearing into Villach, 
which, like Innsbruck, was occupied, under the 
terms of the Armistice, by Italian troops. We 
had great difficulty in obtaining rooms in Vil- 
lach, not because there were no rooms but be- 
cause we were accompanied by an Italian of- 
ficer and were traveling in an Italian car. The 
proprietors of five hotels, upon seeing Captain 
Tron's uniform, curtly declared that every 
room was occupied. It was nearly midnight 
before we succeeded in finding shelter for the 
night, and this was obtained only when I made 
it amply clear to the Austrian proprietor of 
the only remaining hotel in the town that we 
were not Italians but Americans. The unpleas- 
ant impression produced by the coolness of our 
reception in Villach was materially increased 
the following morning, when Captain Tron 
greeted us with the news that all of our lug- 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 37 

gage, which we had left on the car, had been 
stolen. It seemed that thieves had broken into 
the courtyard of the barracks, where the car 
had been locked up for the night, and, in spite 
of the fact that the chauffeur was asleep in the 
tonneau, had stripped it of everything, includ- 
ing the spare tires. I learned afterwards that 
robberies of this sort had become so common 
since the war as scarcely to provoke comment, 
portions of Austria being terrorized by gangs 
of demobilized soldiers who, taking advantage 
of the complete demoralization of the machin- 
ery of government, robbed farmhouses 'and 
plundered travelers at will. It is much the 
same form of lawlessness, I imagine, which 
manifested itself immediately after the close 
of the Napoleonic Wars, when bands of dis- 
charged soldiers sought in robbery the excite- 
ment and booty which they had formerly found 
under the eagles. Though the local police au- 
thorities attempted to condone the robbery on 
the ground that it was due to the appalling 
poverty of the population, this excuse did not 
reconcile my wife to the loss of her entire ward- 
robe. As she remarked vindictively, she felt 



38 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

certain that the inhabitants of Villach were 
called Villains. 

I wished to visit Klagenfurt, the ancient cap- 
ital of Carinthia, which is about twenty miles 
beyond Villach, because at that time the town, 
which is a railway junction of considerable stra- 
tegic and commercial importance, threatened 
to provide the cause for an open break be- 
tween the Jugoslavs and the Italians. Though 
the Italians did not demand the town for them- 
selves, they had vigorously insisted that, instead 
of being awarded to Jugoslavia, it should re- 
main Austrian, for, with the triangle of which 
Klagenfurt is the center in the possession of 
the Jugoslavs, they would have driven a wedge 
between Italy and Austria and would have had 
under their control the immensely important 
junction-point where the main trunk line from 
Venice to Vienna is joined by the line coming 
up from Fiume and Trieste. The Jugoslavs, 
recognizing that the possession of Klagenfurt 
would give them virtual control of the principal 
railway entering Austria from the south, and 
that such control would probably enable them 
to divert much of Austria's traffic from the 
Italian ports of Venice and Trieste to their own 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 39 

port of Fiume, which they confidently expected 
would be awarded them by the Peace Confer- 
ence, lost no time in occupying the town with 
a considerable force of troops. They further 
justified this occupation by asserting that Jugo- 
slavia was entitled to Carinthia on ethnological 
grounds and that the inhabitants of Klagenfurt 
were clamoring for Jugoslav rule. In view of 
these developments, I had expected to find Jugo- 
slav soldiery in the town, but I had not expected 
to be challenged, a mile or so outside the town, 
by a sentry who was, judging from his appear- 
ance, straight from a comitadji band in the Ma- 
cedonian mountains. He was a sullen-faced 
fellow wearing a fur cap and a nondescript uni- 
form, with an assortment of weapons thrust in 
his belt, according to the custom of the Balkan 
guerillas, and with two bandoliers, stuffed with 
cartridges, slung across his chest. He was as 
incongruous a figure in that pleasant German 
countryside as one of Pancho Villa's bandits 
would have been in the Connecticut Valley. And 
Klagenfurt, which is a well-built, well-paved, 
thoroughly modern Austrian town, was occupied 
by several hundred of his fellows, brought 
from somewhere in the Balkans, I should im- 



40 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

agine, for the express purpose of aweing the 
population. It was perfectly apparent that the 
inhabitants, far from welcoming these fierce- 
looking fighters as brother-Slavs and friends, 
were only too anxious to have them take their 
departure, having about as much in common 
with them, in appearance, manners and speech, 
as a New Englander has with an Apache Indian. 
So great was the tension existing in Klagenfurt 
that a commission had been sent by the Peace 
Conference to study the question on the spot, 
its members communicating with the Supreme 
Council in Paris by means of American couriers, 
slim young fellows in khaki who wore on their 
arms the blue brassard, embroidered with the 
scales of justice, which was the badge of mes- 
sengers employed by the Peace Commission. 

A few miles outside of Klagenfurt my atten- 
tion was attracted by an iron paling, in a field 
beside the road, enclosing a gigantic chair 
carved from stone. My curiosity aroused, I 
stopped the car to examine it. From a faded 
inscription attached to the gate I learned that 
this was the crowning chair of the Dukes of 
Carinthia, in which the ancient rulers of this 
region had sat to be crowned. There it stands 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 41 

In a field beside the highway, neglected and for- 
gotten, a curious link with a picturesque and 
far-distant past. 

Our route from Klagenfurt led back through 
Villach to Tarvis and thence over the Predil 
Pass to the Friull plain and Udine, a journey 
which we expected to accomplish in a single 
day; but there were delays in re-crossing the 
Line of the Armistice and other and more seri- 
ous delays in the mountains, caused by torrential 
rains which had in places washed out the road, 
so that it was already nightfall when, emerging 
from the gloomy defile of the Predil Pass, we 
saw before us the twinkling lights of the Alplni 
cantonment at Caporetto, that mountain hamlet 
of black memories where, in the summer of 
19 17, the Austro-German armies, aided by bad 
Italian generalship and Italian treachery, 
smashed through the Italian lines and forced 
them back in a headlong retreat which was 
checked only by the heroic stand on the Piave. 
The Caporetto disaster would have broken the 
hearts and annihilated the resistance of a less 
courageous people than the Italians. Yet the 
Italian army, shattered and disorganized as it 
was, stopped the triumphant progress of the 



42 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

invaders; stopped It almost without artillery or 
ammunition, for hundreds of guns had been 
abandoned during the retreat; stopped it with 
the bodies of Italy's youth, the boys fresh from 
the training-camps, the class of 19 19, called to 
the colors two years before their time! They 
stopped that victorious rush upon the line of the 
Piave, a broad, shallow stream meandering 
through a flat plain with never a height to com- 
mand the enemy's positions, never a physical 
feature of the terrain to satisfy the require- 
ments of strategy. Not only was the line of 
the Piave held by the Italians against the ad- 
vice of their Allies, but it was held in defiance 
of all the lessons taught by Italian history, for 
that the Piave could not be successfully defend- 
ed has been the judgment of every military 
leader since first the barbarians began to sweep 
down from the Alps to lay waste the rich Vene- 
tian plain. The Italians made their heroic 
stand, moreover, without any help from their 
Allies. That help came later, it is true, but 
only after the stand had been made. You doubt 
this? Then read this extract from the report 
of General the Earl of Caven, who commanded 
the Allied troops sent to the aid of the Italians : 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 43 

"In 19 17, in the terrible days which followed 
the disaster at Caporetto, I saw, just after my 
arrival at Venice, the Italian army in full re- 
treat, and I became convinced that a recovery 
was impossible before the arrival of sufficient 
reenforcement from France and England. But 
I was deceived, for shortly afterward I saw 
the Italian army, which had seemed to be in 
the advanced stages of an utter rout, form a 
solid line on the Plave and hold it with miracu- 
lous persistence, permitting the English and 
French reenforcements to take up the positions 
assigned to them without once coming In con- 
tact with the enemy." 

I have heard it said by critics of Italy that 
the retreat from Caporetto showed the lack of 
courage of the Italian soldier. To gauge the 
courage of an army a single disaster is as unjust 
as It Is unintelligent. Was the rout of the Fed- 
eral forces at Bull Run a criterion of their be- 
havior In the succeeding years of the Civil 
War? Was the surrender at Sedan a true in- 
dication of the fighting ability of the French 
soldier? Every nation has had its disasters 
and has had to live them down. Italy did this 
when, on the banks of Plave, she turned her 



44 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

greatest disaster into her most glorious triumph. 
Because it was my privilege to be with the 
Italian army In the field during various periods 
of the war, and because I know at first-hand 
whereof I speak, I regret and resent the dis- 
paragement of the Italian soldier which has 
been so freely indulged in since the Armistice. 
It may be, of course, that you do not fully real- 
ize the magnitude of Italy's sacrifices and 
achievements. Did you know, for example, 
that Italy held a front longer than the British, 
Belgian, French and American fronts put to- 
gether? Did you know that out of a popula- 
tion of 37 millions she put Into the field an army 
of 5 million men, whereas France and her col- 
onies, with nearly double the population, was 
never able to raise more than 5,064,000, a con- 
siderable proportion of which were black and 
brown men? Did you know that In forty-one 
months of war Italy lost 541,000 In dead and 
953,000 in wounded, and that, unlike France 
and England, her armies were composed wholly 
of white men? Did you know that. In spite of 
all that has been said about the Allies giving 
her assistance, Italy at all times had more troops 
on the Western front than the Allies had on the 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 45 

Italian? Did you know that she called up the 
class of 19 19 two years before their time, a 
measure which even France, hard-pressed as she 
was, did not feel justified In taking? (I have 
mentioned this before, but It will bear repeti- 
tion.) Have you stopped to think that she was 
the only one of the Allied nations which won a 
clean-cut and decisive victory, when, on the Pi- 
ave, she attacked with 5 1 divisions an Austro- 
German army of 63 divisions, completely 
smashed It, forced Its surrender, and captured 
half a million prisoners? Did you know th'at 
she lost more than fifty-seven per cent, of her 
merchant tonnage, while England lost less than 
forty-three per cent, and France less than forty 
per cent. ? And, finally, had you realized that 
Italy made greater sacrifices. In proportion to 
her resources and population, than any other 
country engaged In the war, having devoted 
four-fifths of her entire national wealth to the 
prosecution of the struggle? There Is your an- 
swer, chapter and verse, for the next man who 
sneerlngly remarks, "The Italians didn't do 
much, did they?" 

Just as the Trentino and the Upper Adige 
have been added to the kingdom as the Prov- 



46 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

ince of Trent, so the redeemed regions of 
which Trieste is the center, including the towns 
of Gorizia, Monfalcone, Capodistria, Parenzo, 
PIrano, Rovigno and Pola, have been consoli- 
dated in the new province of Julian Venetia, 
with about a million Inhabitants and an area of 
approximately 6,000 square miles. 

Trieste, which, with Its suburbs, has a popu- 
lation of not far from 400,000, with its splen- 
did terminal facilities. Its vast harbor-works, 
its dry-docks and foundries, Its railway commu- 
nications with the hinterland, and, above all 
else, its position as the natural outlet for the 
trade of Austria, Bavaria and Czecho-Slovakia, 
constitutes not only Italy's most valuable prize 
of war, but, everything considered, probably 
the most important city, commercially at least, 
to change hands as a result of the conflict. Curi- 
ously enough, Trieste is the least Interesting city 
of its size, from a visitor's point of view, that 
I know. Venice always reminds me of a beau- 
tiful and charmingly gowned woman, perpetu- 
ally young, interested In art. In music. In liter- 
ature, always ready for a stroll, a dance or a 
flirtation. Trieste, on the contrary, is a busy, 
preoccupied, rather brusque business man. 




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ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 47 

wholly self-made, who has never devoted much 
time to devote to pleasure because he has been 
too busy making his fortune. Venice says, "If 
you want a good time, let me show you how to 
spend your money." But Trieste growls, "If 
you want to get rich, let me show you how to 
invest your money." The city has broad and 
well-kept streets bordered by the same sort of 
four- and five- and six-story buildings of brick 
and stone which you find in any European com- 
mercial city; it has several unusually spacious 
piazzas on which front some really pretentious 
buildings; it has a few arches and doorways 
dating from the Roman period, though far bet- 
ter ones can be found in almost any town on 
the Italian peninsula; on the hill commanding 
the city there are an old Austrian fort and an 
ancient church, both chiefly interesting for the 
views they command of the harbor and the 
coast of Istria; some of the most abominably 
rough pavements which I have ever encountered 
in any city; one hotel which just escapes being 
excellent and several which do not escape be- 
ing bad; and a harbor, together with the 
wharves and moles and machinery which go 
with it, which Is the Triestino's pride and joy. 



48 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

To my way of thinking the most interesting 
sight in Trieste is a small chateau, built in the 
castellated fashion which had a considerable 
vogue in America shortly after the close of the 
Civil War, which stands amid most beautiful 
gardens on the edge of the sea, two or three 
miles to the west of the city. This is the Cha- 
teau of Miramar, formerly the residence of the 
young Austrian Archduke Maximilian, who, 
dazzled by the dream of life on an imperial 
throne, accepted an invitation to become Em- 
peror of Mexico and a few years later fell be- 
fore a Mexican firing-party on the slopes of 
Queretaro. Though the chateau has now passed 
into the possession of the Italian Government it 
is still in charge of the aged custodian who, as 
a youth, was body-servant to Maximilian. Bar- 
ring the fact that the paintings and certain 
pieces of furniture had been removed to Vienna 
to save from injury by aerial bombardment, the 
interior of the chateau is much as Maximilian 
left it when he set out with his bride, Carlotta, 
the sister of the late King Leopold of the Bel- 
gians, on his ill-fated adventure. In the study 
on the ground floor hangs a photograph, still 
sharp and clear after the lapse of half a cen- 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 49 

tury, of the members of the delegation — 
swarthy men in the high cravats and long frock- 
coats of the period, some of them wearing the 
stars and sashes of orders — who came to Mira- 
mar to offer Maximilian the Mexican crown. 
The old custodian told me that he witnessed the 
scene and he pointed out to me where his young 
master and the other actors in this, the first act 
of the tragedy, stood. How little could the 
youthful Emperor have dreamed, as he set sail 
for those distant shores, that the day would 
come when the Dual Monarchy would go down 
in ruins, when the ancient dynasty of the Haps- 
burgs would come to an inglorious end, and 
when the garden paths where he and his beau- 
tiful young bride used to saunter in the moon- 
light would be paced by Italian carabineers. 

If you will get out the atlas and turn to the 
map of Italy you will notice at the head of the 
Adriatic a peninsula shaped like the head of an 
Indian arrow, its tip aimed toward the unpro- 
tected flank of Italy's eastern coast. This 
arrow-shaped peninsula is Istria. In the West- 
ern notch of the arrowhead, toward Italy, is 
Trieste — terminus of the railway to Vienna. In 
the opposite notch is Fiume — terminus of the 



50 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

railway which runs across Croatia and Hungary 
to Budapest. And at the very tip of the arrow, 
as though it had been ground to a deadly sharp- 
ness, is Pola, formerly Austria's greatest naval 
base. Dotting the western coast of Istria, be- 
tween Trieste and Pola, are four small towns — 
Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno — < 
all purely and distinctively Italian, and, on the 
other side of the peninsula, the famous resort 
of Abbazia, popular with wealthy Hungarians 
and with the yachtsmen of all nations before 
the war. 

Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno 
were all outposts of the Venetian Republic, 
forming an outer line of defense against the 
Slav barbarians of the interior. Everything 
about them speaks of Venice : the snarling Lion 
of St. Mark which is carved above their gates 
and surmounts the marble columns in their pi- 
azzas; their old, old churches — the one at Pa- 
renzo was built in the sixth century, being cop- 
ied after the famous basilica at Ravenna, 
across the Adriatic — the interiors of many of 
them adorned, like that of St. Mark's in Ven- 
ice, with superb mosaics of gold and semi- 
precious stones; the carved lions' heads, bocca 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 51 

del leone, for receiving secret missives ; the deli- 
cate tracery above the doors and windows of 
the palazzos, and all those other architectural 
features so characteristic of the City of the 
Doges. There is no questioning what these Is- 
trian coast-towns were or are. They are as 
Italian to-day as when, a thousand years ago, 
they formed a part of Venice's far-flung skir- 
mish line. But penetrate even a single mile into 
the interior of the peninsula and you find a 
wholly different race from these Latins of the 
littoral, a different architecture (if architecture 
can be appHed to square huts built of sun-dried 
bricks) and a different tongue. These people 
are the Croats, a hardy, industrious agricultural 
people, generally iUiterate, at least as I found 
them in Istria, and with few of the comforts 
and none of the culture which characterized the 
Latin communities on the coast. In short, the 
towns of the western coast are undeniably Ital- 
ian; the rest of the peninsula is solidly Slav. 

The interior of Istria consists, in the main, 
of a barren, monotonous and peculiarly unlovely 
limestone plateau known as the Karst, a con- 
tinuation of that waterless and treeless ridge, 
called by Italians the Carso, which stretches 



52 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

from Trieste northwestward to Goritzia and 
beyond. With the exception of the Bukovica 
of Dalmatia and the lava-beds of southern 
Utah, the Tstrian Karst is the most utterly hope- 
less region, from the standpoint of agriculture, 
that I know. It is dotted with many small farm- 
steads, it is true, but one marvels at the courage 
and patience which their peasant owners dis- 
played in their unequal struggle with Nature. 
The rocky surface is covered with a stunted, 
discouraged-looking vegetation which reminded 
me of that clothing the flanks of the mountains 
in the vicinity of the Roosevelt Dam, in Ari- 
zona, and here and there are vast rolling moors, 
uninhabited by man or animal, as desolate, mys- 
terious and repelling as that depicted by Sir 
Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the 
Baskervilles. The Karst, like the Carso, i& 
dotted with curious depressions called dolinas, 
some of them as much as lOO feet in depth, the 
floors of which, varying in extent from a few 
square yards to several acres, are covered with 
soil which is as rich as the surface of the sur- 
rounding plateau is worthless. Because of the 
fertility of these singular depressions, and their 
immunity from the cold winds which in winter 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 53 

sweep the surface of the Karst, they are utilized 
by the peasants for growing fruits, vegetables 
and, in some cases, small patches of grain, be- 
ing, in effect, sunken gardens provided by Na- 
ture as though to recompense the Istrians, in 
some measure, for their discouraging struggle 
for existence. 

Just behind the very tip of the peninsula, on 
the edge of a superb natural harbor, the en- 
trance to which is masked by the Brioni Islands, 
is the great naval base of Pola, from the shelter 
of whose fortifications and mined approaches 
the Austrian fleet was able to terrorize the de- 
fenseless towns along Italy's unprotected east- 
ern seaboard and to menace the commerce of 
the northern Adriatic. Pola is a strange me- 
lange of the ancient and the modern, for from 
the topmost tiers of the great Roman Arena — 
scarcely less imposing than the Coliseum at 
Rome — we looked down upon a harbor dotted 
with the fighting monsters of the Italian navy, 
while all day long Italian seaplanes swooped 
and circled over the splendid arch, erected by 
a Roman emperor in the dim dawn of Euro- 
pean history, to commemorate his triumph over 
the barbarians. 



54 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

It Is just such anomalies as these that make 
almost Impossible the solution, on a basis of 
strict justice to the inhabitants, of the Adriatic 
problem. Here you see a city that, In history, 
in population, in language, Is as characteristi- 
cally Italian as though It were under the shadow 
of the Apennines, yet encircling that city Is a 
countryside whose Inhabitants are wholly Slav, 
who are intensely hostile to Italian Institutions, 
and many of whom have no knowledge whatso- 
ever of the Italian tongue. The Italians claim 
that Istria should be theirs because of the un- 
doubted Latin character of the towns along Its 
coasts, because their Roman and Venetian an- 
cestors established their outposts here long cen- 
turies ago, because the only culture that the 
region possesses is Italian, and, above all else, 
because its possession is essential to the safety 
of Italy herself. The Slavs, on the other hand, 
lay claim to Istria on the ground that its first 
Inhabitants, whether barbarians or not, were 
Slavs, that the Italians who settled on its shores 
were but filibusters and adventurers, and that 
Its Inhabitants, by blood, by language, and by 
sentiment, are overwhelmingly Slav to-day. The 
only thing on which both races agree Is that the 



ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 55 

peninsula should not be divided. It was no easy 
problem, you see, which the peace-makers were 
expected to solve with strict justice for all. If 
my memory serves me right, King Solomon was 
once called upon by two mothers to settle a 
somewhat similar dispute, though in that case 
it was a child instead of a country whose owner- 
ship was in question. So, though both Latins 
and Slavs may continue to assert their rights to 
the peninsula in its entirety, I imagine that the 
Istrian problem will eventually be settled by the 
judgment of Solomon. 



CHAPTER II 

THE BORDERLAND OF SLAV 
AND LATIN 

IT was the same along the entire line of the 
Armistice from the Brenner down to Istria. 
Whenever the officials with whom we talked 
heard that we were going to Fiume, they shook 
their heads pessimistically. "It's a good place 
to stay away from just now," said one. "They 
won't let you enter the city," another warned 
us. Or, "You mustn't think of taking the 
stgnora with you.'* But the representative of 
an American oil company whom I met in the 
American consulate in Trieste regarded the 
excursion from a different view-point alto- 
gether. 

"Be sure to stop at the Europa," he urged 
me. "It's right on the water-front, and there 
isn't a better place in the city to see what's hap- 
pening. I was there last week when the mob 

56 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 57 

attacked the French Annamite troops. Believe 
me, friend, that was one hellish business . . . 
they literally cut those poor little Chinks into 
pieces. I saw the whole thing from my win- 
dow. Fm going back to Fiume to-morrow, and 
if you like I'll tell the manager of the Europa 
to save you a front room." 

His tone was that of a New Yorker telling a 
friend from up-State that he would reserve him 
a room in a Fifth Avenue hotel from which to 
view a parade. 

As things turned out, however, we did not 
have occasion to avail ourselves of this offer, 
for we found that rooms had been reserved for 
us at a hotel in Abbazia, just across the bay 
from Fiume. This arrangement was due to 
the Italian military governor. General Grazioli, 
who was perfectly aware that the inhabitants 
of Fiume were not hanging out any "Welcome- 
to-Our-City" signs for foreigners, particularly 
for foreigners who were country people of 
President Wilson, and that the fewer Ameri- 
cans there were in the town the less danger 
there was of anti-American demonstrations. In 
view of what had happened to the Annamites I 
had no overpowering desire to be the center of 



58 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

a similar demonstration. Pursuant to this ar- 
rangement we slept in a great barn of a hotel 
whose echoing corridors had, in happier days, 
been a favorite resort of the wealth and fashion 
of Hungary, but whose once costly furniture 
had been sadly dilapidated by the spurred boots 
of the Austrian staff officers who had used it as 
a headquarters; in the mornings we had our 
sugarless coffee and butterless war-bread on a 
lofty balcony commanding a superb panorama 
of the Istrian coast from Icici to Volosca and 
of the island-studded Bay of Quarnero, and 
commuted to and from Fiume in the big gray 
Lancia in which we had traveled along the line 
of the Armistice for upward of 2,000 miles. 

We had our first view of the Unredeemed 
City (though it was really not my first view, 
as I had been there before the war) from a 
curve in the road where it suddenly emerges 
from the woods of evergreen laurel above Vo- 
losca to drop in steep white zigzags to the sea. 
It is superbly situated, this ancient city over 
whose possession Slav and Latin are growling 
at each other like dogs over a disputed bone. 
With its snowy buildings spread on the slopes 
of a shallow amphitheater between the sapphire 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 59 

waters of the Adriatic and the barren flanks of 
the Istrlan Karst, it suggested a lovely siren, 
all glistening and white, who had emerged from 
the sea to lie upon the bare brown breast of a 
mountain giant. 

The car, with its exhaust wide open, for your 
Italian driver delights in noise, roared down 
the grade at express-train speed, took the hair- 
pin curve at the bottom on two wheels, to be 
brought to an abrupt halt with an agonized 
squealing of brakes, our further progress being 
barred by a six-inch tree-trunk which had been 
lowered across the road like a barrier at an 
old-time country toll-gate. At one side of the 
road was a picket of Italian carabinieri in field- 
gray uniforms, their huge cocked hats rendered 
a shade less anachronistic by covers of gray 
linen, with carbines slung over their shoulders, 
hunter fashion. On the opposite side of the 
highway was a patrol of British sailors in white 
drill landing-kit, their rosy, smiling faces in 
striking contrast to the saturnine countenances 
of the Italians. (I might explain, parentheti- 
cally, that Flume, being In theory under the 
jurisdiction of the Peace Conference, was at 
this time occupied by about a thousand French 



6o NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

troops, the same number of British, a few score 
American blue-jackets, and nearly 10,000 
Italians.) The sergeant In command of the 
carablnlerl stepped up to the car, saluted, and 
curtly asked for our papers. I produced them. 
Among them was a pass authorizing us to go 
when and where we pleased in the territory oc- 
cupied by the Italian forces. It had been given 
to me by the Minister of War himself, but it 
made about as much impression on the sergeant 
as though it had been signed by Charlie 
Chaplin. 

"This is good only for Italy,'' he said. "It 
will not take you across the line of the Armi- 
stice." 

Thereupon I played my last trump. I pro- 
duced an imposing document which had been 
given me by the Italian peace delegation In 
Paris. It had originally been Issued by the 
Orlando-Sonnino cabinet, but upon the fall of 
that government I had had It countersigned, be- 
fore leaving Rome, by the Nitti cabinet. It 
was addressed to all the military, naval, and 
civil authorities of Italy, and was so flatteringly 
worded that it would have satisfied St. Peter 
himself. But the sergeant was not in the least 







< 
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W 
H 



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BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 6i 

impressed. He read it through deliberately, 
scrutinized the official seals, examined the wa- 
termark, and then disappeared into a sentry- 
box on the roadside. I could hear him talking, 
evidently over a telephone. Presently he 
emerged and signaled to his men to raise the 
barrier. "Passo," he said grudgingly, in a tone 
which intimated that he was letting us enter the 
jealously guarded portals of Fiume against his 
better judgment, the bar swung upward, the 
big car leaped forward like a race-horse that 
feels the spur, and in another moment we were 
rolling through the tree-arched, stone-paved 
streets of the most-talked-of city in the world. 
As we sped down the Corsia Deak we passed 
a large hotel which, as was quite evident, had 
recently been renamed, for the words *'Albergo 
d'Annunzio" were fresh and staring. But un- 
derneath was the former name, which had been 
so imperfectly obliterated that it could still 
easily be deciphered. It was "Hotel Wilson." 
To correctly visualize Fiume you must 
imagine a town no larger than Atlantic City 
crowded upon a narrow shelf between a tower- 
ing mountain wall and the sea; a town with 
broad and moderately clean streets, shaded. 



62 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

save In the center of the city, by double rows 
of stately trees and paved with large square 
flagstones which make abominably rough rid- 
ing; a town with several fine thoroughfares bor- 
dered by well-constructed four-story buildings 
of brick and stone; with numerous surprisingly 
well-stocked shops; with miles and miles of 
concrete moles and wharfs, equipped with har- 
bor machinery of the most modern description, 
and adjacent to them rows of warehouses as 
commodious as the Bush Terminals In Brook- 
lyn, and rising here and there above the trees 
and the housetops, like fingers pointing to 
heaven, the graceful campaniles of fine old 
churches, one of which, the cathedral, was al- 
ready old when the Great Navigator turned the 
prows of his caravels westward from Cadiz In 
quest of this land we live In. 

Flume lacks none of the conditions which 
make a great seaport: there Is deep water and 
a convenient approach, which is protected 
against the ocean and against a hostile fleet by 
the Islands of Veglia and Cherso and against 
the north winds by the rocky plateau of the 
Karst. Yet, despite its natural advantages and 
the millions which were spent in its develop- 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 63 

ment by the Hungarian Government, Flume 
never developed into a port of the size and im- 
portance which the foreign commerce of Hun- 
gary would have seemed to require, this being 
largely due to its unfortunate geographical con- 
dition, for the dreary and inhospitable Karst 
completely shuts the city off from the interior, 
the numerous tunnels and steep gradients mak- 
ing rail transport by this route difficult and 
consequently expensive. 

The public life of the city centers in the 
Piazza Adamich, a broad square on which front 
numerous hotels, restaurants, and coffee- 
houses, before which lounge, from midmorning 
until midnight, a considerable proportion of 
the Italian population, sipping cafe nero, or 
tall drinks concocted from sweet, bright-colored 
syrups, scanning the papers and discussing, with 
much noise and gesticulation, the political situa- 
tion and the doings of the peace commissioners 
in Paris. Save only Barcelona, Fiume has the 
most excitable and irritable population of any 
city that I know. When we were there street 
disturbances were as frequent as dog-fights used 
to be in Constantinople before the Turks recog- 
nized that the best gloves are made from dog- 



64 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

skins. As I have said, a few days before our 
arrival a mob had attacked and killed in most 
barbarous fashion a number of Annamite sol- 
diers who were guarding a French warehouse 
on the quay. Several prominent Fumani with 
whom I talked attempted to justify the mas- 
sacre on the ground that a French sailor had 
torn a ribbon bearing the motto ^^Italia o 
MorteP' from the breast of a woman of the 
town. They did not seem to regret the affair 
or to realize that it is just such occurrences 
which lead the Peace Conference to question 
the wisdom of subjecting the city's Slav min- 
ority to that sort of rule. As a result of the 
tense atmosphere which prevailed in the city, 
the nerves of the population were so on edge 
that when my car back-fired with a series of 
violent explosions, the loungers in front of a 
near-by cafe jumped as though a bomb had been 
thrown among them. The patron saint of 
Fiume is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus. 

In discussing the question of Fiume the mis- 
take is almost invariably made of considering 
it as a single city, whereas it really consists of 
two distinct communities, Fiume and Sussak, 
bitterly antagonistic and differing in race, re- 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 65 

llglon, language, politics, customs, and thought. 
A small river, the Rieka, no wider than the 
Erie Canal, divides the city into two parts, one 
Latin the other Slav, very much as the Rio 
Grande separates the American city of El Paso 
from the Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez. On 
the left or west bank of the river is Fiume, with 
approximately 40,000 inhabitants, of whom 
very nearly three-fourths are Italian. Here are 
the wharfs, the harbor works, the rail-head, the 
municipal buildings, the hotels, and the busi- 
ness districts. But cross the Rieka by the single 
wooden bridge which connects Fiume with 
Sussak and you find yourself in a wholly dif- 
ferent atmosphere. In a hundred paces you 
pass from a city which is three-quarters Italian 
to a town which Is overwhelmingly Slav. There 
are about 4,500 people in Sussak, of whom only 
one-eighth are Italian. But let it be perfectly 
clear that Sussak Is not Fiume. In proclaiming 
Its annexation to Italy on the ground of self- 
determination, the National Council of Flume 
did not include Sussak, which is a Croatian vil- 
lage In historically Croatian territory. It will 
be seen, therefore, that Sussak, which is not a 
part of Flume but an entirely separate mu- 



66 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

niclpality, does not enter into the question at 
all. As for the territory immediately adjacent 
to Fiume on the north and east, it is as Slav 
as though it were in the heart of Serbia. To 
put it briefly, Fiume is an Italian island entirely 
surrounded by Slavs. 

The violent self-assertiveness of the Fumani 
may be attributed to the large mealsure of 
autonomy which they have always enjoyed, 
Fiume's status as a free city having been 
definitely es4:ablished by Ferdinand I in 1530, 
recognized by Maria Theresa in 1776 when she 
proclaimed it "a separate body annexed to the 
crown of Hungary," and by the Hungarian 
Government finally confirmed in 1868. Louis 
Kossuth admitted its extraterritorial character 
when he said that, even though the Magyar 
tongue should be enforced elsewhere as the 
medium of official communication, he considered 
that an exception "should be made in favor of 
a maritime city whose vocation was to welcome 
all nations led thither by commerce." 

Though the Italian element of the popula- 
tion vociferously asserts its adherence to the 
slogan ^'Italia o Mortef^ I am convinced that 
many of the more substantial and far-seeing 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 67 

citizens, if they dared freely to express their 
opinions, would be found to favor the restora- 
tion of the city's ancient autonomy under the 
xgis of the League of Nations. The Italians 
of Fiume are at bottom, beneath their excitable 
and mercurial temperaments, a shrewd business 
people who have the commercial future of their 
city at heart. And they are intelligent enough 
to realize that, unless there be established some 
stable form of government which will propitiate 
the Slav minority as well as the Italian ma- 
jority, the Slav nations of the hinterland will 
almost certainly divert their trade, on which 
Flume's commercial importance entirely de- 
pends, to some non-Italian port, in which event 
the city would inevitably retrograde to the ob- 
scure fishing village which it was less than half 
a century ago. 

In order that you may have before you a 
clear and comprehensive picture of this most 
perplexing and dangerous situation, which is 
so fraught with peril for the future peace of 
the world, suppose that I sketch for you, in the 
fewest word-strokes possible, the arguments of 
the rival claimants for fair Flume's hand. 
Italy's claims may be classified under three 



68 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

heads: sentimental, commercial, and political. 
Her sentimental claims are based on the ground 
that the city's population, character, and his- 
tory are overwhelmingly Italian. I have al- 
ready stated that the Italians constitute about 
three-fourths of the total population of Flume, 
the latest figures, as quoted In the United States 
Senate, giving 29,569 inhabitants to the Italians 
and 14,798 to the Slavs. There is no denying 
that the city has a distinctively Italian atmos- 
phere, for its architecture is Italian, that Vene- 
tian trademark, the Lion of St. Mark, being In 
evidence on several of the older buildings; the 
mode of outdoor life is such as one meets in 
Italy; most of its stores and banks are owned 
by Itahans, and Italian is the prevailing tongue. 
The claim that the city's history is Italian is, 
however, hardly borne out by history itself, 
for In the sixteen centuries which have elapsed 
since the fall of the Roman Empire, Flume has 
been under Italian rule — that of the republic 
of Venice — for just four days. 

The commercial reason underlying Italy's in- 
sistence on obtaining control of Flume is due 
to the fact that Italians are convinced that 
should Flume pass Into either neutral or Jugo- 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 69 

slav hands, it would mean the commercial ruin 
of Trieste, where enormous sums of Italian 
money have been invested. They assert, and 
with sound reasoning, that the Slavs of the 
hinterland, and probably the Germans and 
Magyars as well, would ship through Fiume, 
were it under Slav or international control, in- 
stead of through Trieste, which is Italian. One 
does not need to be an economist to realize that 
if Fiume could secure the trade of Jugoslavia 
and the other states carved from the Austro- 
Hungarian Empire, the commercial supremacy 
of Trieste, which depends upon this same hin- 
terland, would quickly disappear. On the other 
hand, those Italians whose vision has not been 
distorted by their passions clearly foresee that, 
should the final disposition of Flume prove un- 
acceptable to the Jugoslavs, they will almost 
certainly divert the trade of the interior to some 
Slav port, leaving Flume to drowse in idleness 
beside her moss-grown wharfs and crumbling 
warehouses, dreaming dreams of her one-time 
prosperity. 

Italy's third reason for Insisting on the ces- 
islon of Fiume is political, and, because It is 
based on a deep-seated and haunting fear. It is, 



70 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

perhaps, the most compelling reason of all. 
Italy does not trust the Jugoslavs. She cannot 
forget that the Austrian and Hungarian frac- 
tions of the new Jugoslav people — in other 
words, the Slovenes and Croats — were the most 
faithful subjects of the Dual Monarchy, fight- 
ing for the Hapsburgs with a ferocity and de- 
termination hardly surpassed in the war. Un- 
like the Poles and Czecho-Slovaks, who threw 
in their lot with the Allies, the Slovenes and 
Croats fought, and fought desperately, for the 
triumph of the Central Empires. Had these 
two peoples turned against their masters early 
in the war, the great struggle would have ended 
months, perhaps years, earlier than it did. Yet, 
within a few days after the signing of the 
Armistice, they became Jugoslavs, and an- 
nounced that they have always been at heart 
friendly to the Allies. But, so the Italians 
argue, their conversion has been too sudden: 
they have changed their flag but not their 
* hearts; their real allegiance is not to Belgrade 
but to Berlin. The Italian attitude toward 
these peoples who have so abruptly switched 
from enemies to allies is that of the American 
soldier for the Filipino: 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 71 

"He may be a brother of William H. Taft, 
But he ain't no brother of mine." 



The Italians are convinced that the three 
peoples who have been so hastily welded into 
Jugoslavia will, as the result of Internal jealous- 
ies and dissensions, eventually disintegrate, and 
that, when the break-up comes, those portions 
of the new state which formerly belonged to 
Austria-Hungary will ally themselves with the 
great Teutonic or, perhaps, Russo-Teutonic, 
confederation which, most students of Eu- 
ropean affairs believe, will arise from the ruins 
of the Central Empires. When that day comes 
the new power will look with hungering eyes 
toward the rich markets which fringe the Mid- 
dle Sea, and what more convenient gateway 
through which to pour Its merchandise — and, 
perhaps. Its fighting men — than Flume in 
friendly hands? In order to bar forever this, 
the sole gateway to the warm water still open 
to the Hun, the Italians should, they maintain, 
be made Its guardians. 

*'But," you argue, "suppose Jugoslavia does 
not break up? How can 14,000,000 Slavs seri- 
ously menace Italy's 40,000,000?'* 



72 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Ah I Now you touch the very heart of the 
whole matter; now you have put your finger 
on the secret fear which has animated Italy 
throughout the controversy over Fiume and 
Dalmatia. For I do not believe that it is a 
reincarnated Germany which Italy dreads. It 
is something far more ominous, more terrify- 
ing than that, which alarms her. For, look- 
ing across the Adriatic, she sees the monstrous 
vision of a united and aggressive Slavdom, un- 
told miUions strong, of which the Jugoslavs are 
but the skirmish-line, ready to dispute not mere- 
ly Italy's schemes for the commercial mastery 
of the Balkans but her overlordship of that 
sea which she regards as an Italian lake. 

Jugoslavia's claims to Fiume are more briefly 
stated. Firstly, she lays title to it on the ground 
that geographically Fiume belongs to Croatia, 
and that Croatia is now a part of Jugoslavia, 
or, to give the new country its correct name, the 
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. 
This claim is, I think, well founded, and this 
despite the fact that Italy has attempted to 
prove, by means of innumerable pamphlets and 
maps, that Fiume, being within the great semi- 
circular wall formed by the Alps, is physically 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 73 

Italian. The Jugoslavs demand Fiume, sec- 
ondly, because, they assert, if Fiume and Sussak 
are considered as a single city, that city has 
more Slavs than Italians, while the population 
of the hinterland is almost solidly Croatian. 
With the first half of this claim I cannot agree. 
As I have already pointed out, Sussak is not, 
and never has been, a part of Fiume, and its 
annexation is not demanded by the Italians. 
Conceding, however, for the sake of argument, 
that Fiume and Sussak are parts of the same 
city, the most reliable figures which I have been 
able to obtain show that, even were the Slav 
majority in Sussak added to the Slav minority 
in Fiume, the Slavs would still be able to muster 
barely more than a third of the total popula- 
tion. By far the strongest title which the Slavs 
have to the city, and the one which commands 
for them the greatest sympathy. Is their as- 
sertion that Fiume Is the natural and, indeed, 
almost the only practicable commercial outlet 
for Jugoslavia, and that the struggling young 
state needs it desperately. In reply to this, the 
Italians point out that there are numerous har- 
bors along the Dalmatian coast which would 
answer the needs of Jugoslavia as well, or 



74 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

almost as well, as Fiume. Now, I am speak- 
ing from first-hand knowledge when I assert 
that this is not so, for I have seen with my 
own eyes every harbor, or potential harbor, on 
the eastern coast of the Adriatic from Istria 
to Greece. As a matter of fact, the entire 
coast of Dalmatia would not make up to the 
Jugoslavs for the loss of Fiume. The map 
gives no idea of the city's importance as the 
southernmost point at which a standard-gauge 
railway reaches the Adriatic, for the railway 
leading to Ragusa, to which the Italians so 
repeatedly refer as providing an outlet for Ju- 
goslavia, is not only narrow-gauge but is in part 
a rack-and-pinion mountain line. The situation 
Is best summed up by the commander of the 
American war-ship on which I dined at Spalato. 
"It is not a question of finding a good har- 
bor for the Jugoslavs," he said. "This coast 
is rich In splendid harbors. It is a question, 
rather, of finding a practicable route for a 
standard-gauge railway over or through the 
mile-high range of the Dinaric Alps, which 
parallel the entire coast, shutting the coast 
towns off from the hinterland. Until such a 
railway Is built, the peoples of the interior have 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 75 

no means of getting their products down to 
the coast save through Fiume. Italy already 
has the great port of Trieste. Were she also 
to be awarded Flume she would have a strangle- 
hold on the trade of Jugoslavia which would 
probably mean that country's commercial 
ruin." 

I have now given you, as fairly as I know 
how, the principal arguments of the rival 
claimants. The Italians of Fiume, as I have 
already shown, outnumber the Slavs almost 
three to one, and it is they who are demanding 
so violently that the city should be annexed to 
Italy on the ground of self-determination. But 
I do not believe that, because there is an un- 
doubted Italian majority In Flume, the city 
should be awarded to Italy. If Italy were ask- 
ing only what was beyond all shadow of ques- 
tion Italian, I should sympathize with her un- 
reservedly. But to place 10,000 Slavs under 
Italian rule would be as unjust and as provoca- 
tive of future trouble as to place 30,000 Italians 
under the rule of Belgrade. Nor is the cession 
of the city itself the end of Italy's claims, for, 
in order to place it beyond the range of the 
enemy's guns (by the "enemy" she means her 



76 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

late allies, the Serbs), in order to maintain con- 
trol of the railways entering the city, and in 
order to bring the city actually within her terri- 
torial borders, she desires to extend her rule 
over other thousands of people who are not 
Italian, who do not speak the Italian tongue, 
and who do not wish Italian rule. Italy has 
no stancher friend than I, but neither my pro- 
found admiration for what she achieved during 
the war nor my deep sympathy for the stagger- 
ing losses she suffered can blind me to the un- 
wisdom, let us call it, of certain of her de- 
mands. I am convinced that, when the pas- 
sions aroused by the controversy have had time 
to cool, the Italians will themselves question the 
wisdom of accumulating for themselves future 
troubles by creating new lost provinces and a 
new Irredenta by annexing against their will 
thousands of people of an alien race. Viewing 
the question from the standpoints of abstract 
justice, of sound politics, and of common sense, 
I do not believe that Fiume should be given 
either to the Italians or to the Jugoslavs, but 
that the interests of both, as well as the pros- 
perity of the Fumani themselves, should be 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 77 

safeguarded by making it a free city under in- 
ternational control. 

No account of the extraordinary drama — 
farce would be a better name were its possibil- 
ities not so tragic — which is being staged at 
Fiume would be complete without some men- 
tion of the romantic figure who is playing the 
part of hero or villain, according to whether 
your sympathies are with the Italians or the 
Jugoslavs. There is nothing romantic, mind 
you, in Gabriele d'Annunzio's personal appear- 
ance. On the contrary, he is one of the most 
unimpressive-looking men I have ever seen. He 
is short of stature — not over five feet five, I 
should guess — and even his beautifully cut 
clothes, which fit so faultlessly about the waist 
and hips as to suggest the use of stays, but 
partially camouflage the corpulency of middle 
age. His head looks like a new-laid egg which 
has been highly varnished; his pointed beard is 
clipped in a fashion which reminded me of the 
bronze satyrs In the Naples museum; a monocle, 
worn without a cord, conceals his dead eye, 
which he lost in battle. His walk is a com- 
bination of a mince and a swagger; his move- 



78 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

ments are those of an actor who knows that 
the spotlight is upon him. 

Though d'Annunzio takes high rank among 
the modern poets, many of his admirers hold- 
ing him to be the greatest one alive, he Is a 
far greater orator. His diction is perfect, his 
wealth of imagery exhaustless ; I have seen him 
sway a vast audience as a wheat-field is swayed 
by the wind. His life he values not at all; 
the four rows of ribbons which on the breast 
of his uniform make a splotch of color were 
not won by his verses. Though well past the 
half-century mark, he has participated in a 
score of aerial combats, occupying the observ- 
er's seat In his fighting Sva and operating the 
machine-gun. But perhaps the most brilliant 
of his military exploits was a bloodless one, 
when he flew over Vienna and bombed that 
city with proclamations, written by himself, 
pointing out to the Viennese the futility of 
further resistance. His popularity among all 
classes is amazing; his word is law to the great 
organization known as the Combatenti, com- 
posed of the 5,000,000 men who fought in the 
Italian armies. He is a jingo of the jingoes, 
his plans for Italian expansion reaching far 




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BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 79 

beyond the annexation of Flume or even all of 
Dalmatia, for he has said again and again that 
he dreams of that day when Italy will have ex- 
tended her rule over all that territory which 
once was held by Rome. 

He is a very picturesque and interesting 
figure, is Gabriele d'Annunzio— very much in 
earnest, wholly sincere, but fanatical, egotistical, 
intolerant of the rights or opinions of others, 
a visionary, and perhaps a little mad. I imagine 
that he would rather have his name linked with 
that of that other soldier-poet, who "flamed 
away at Missolonghi" nearly a century ago, 
than with any other character in history save 
Garibaldi. D'Annunzio, like Byron, was an 
exile from his native land. Both had a habit 
of never paying their bills; both had offended 
against the social codes of their times; both 
flamed against what they believed to be in- 
justice and tyranny; both had a passionate love 
for liberty; both possessed a highly developed 
sense of the dramatic and delighted in playing 
romantic roles. I have heard it said that 
d'Annunzio's raid on Fiume would make his 
name immortal, but I doubt It. Barely a score 
of years have passed since the raid on Johannes- 



8o NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

burg, which was a far more daring and hazard- 
ous exploit than d'Annunzlo's Fiume perform- 
ance, yet to-day how many people remember 
Doctor Jameson? It can be said for this mid- 
dle-aged poet that he has successfully defied the 
government of Italy, that he flouted the royal 
duke who was sent to parley with him, that he 
seduced the Italian army and navy into com- 
mitting open mutiny — "a breach of that mili- 
tary discipline," in the words of the Prime Min- 
ister, *'which is the foundation of the safety of 
the state" — and that he has done more to shake 
foreign confidence in the stability of the Italian 
character and the dependability of the Italian 
soldier than the Austro-Germans did when they 
brought about the disaster at Caporetto. 

I have heard it said that the Nitti govern- 
ment had advance knowledge of the raid on 
Fiume and that the reason it took no vigorous 
measures against the filibusters was because it 
secretly approved of their action. This I do 
not believe. With President Wilson, the Jugo- 
slavs, d'Annunzio, and the Italian army and 
navy arrayed against him, I am convinced that 
Mr. Nitti did everything that could be done 
without precipitating either a war or a revolu- 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 8i 

tion. Much credit is also due to the Jugo- 
slavs for their forbearance and restraint under 
great provocation. They must have been sore- 
ly tempted to give the Poet the spanking he so 
richly deserves. 

When the small army of newspaper corre- 
spondents who were despatched by the great 
New York and London dallies to Khartoum 
to interview Colonel Roosevelt upon his 
emergence from the jungle started up the White 
Nile to meet the explorer, they were deterred, 
both by the shortage of boats and the question 
of expense, from chartering individual steam- 
ers. But the public at home was not permitted 
to know of these petty limitations and annoy- 
ances. On the contrary, people all over the 
United States, at their breakfast-tables, read 
the despatches from the far-off Sudan dated 
from "On board the New York Herald's 
dahabeah Rameses*' or "The New York Amer- 
icanos despatch-boat Abbas Hilmi/^ or "The 
Chicago Tribune's special steamer General 
Gordon/' and never dreamed that the young 
men in sun-helmets and white linen who were 
writing those despatches were comfortably 



82 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

seated under the awnings of the same decrepit 
stern-wheeler, which they had chartered jointly, 
but on which, in order to lend importance and 
dignity to his despatches, each correspondent 
had bestowed a particular name. 

But the destroyer Sirio, which we found 
awaiting us at Fiume, we did not have to share 
with any one. Thanks to the courtesy of the 
Italian Ministry of Marine, she was all ours, 
while we were aboard her, from her knife-like 
prow to the screws kicking the water under her 
stern. 

*T am under orders to place myself entirely 
at your disposal," explained her youthful and 
very stiffly starched skipper. Commander Poggi. 
"I am to go where you desire and to stop as 
long as you please. Those are my instruc- 
tions." 

Thus it came about that, shortly after noon 
on a scorching summer day, we cast off our 
moorings and, leaving quarrel-torn Fiume 
abaft, turned the nose of the Sirio sou' by sou'- 
west, down the coast of Dalmatia. The sun- 
kissed waters of the Bay of Quarnero looked 
for all the world like a vast azure carpet strewn 
with a million sparkling diamonds ; on our star- 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 83 

board quarter stretched the green-clad slopes 
of Istria, with the white villas of Abbazia peep- 
ing coyly out from amid the groves of pine 
and laurel; to the eastward the bleak brown 
peaks of the DInarIc Alps rose, savage, myste- 
rious, forbidding, against the cloudless summer 
sky. Perhaps no stretch of coast In all the 
world has had so varied and romantic a his- 
tory or so many masters as this Dalmatian sea- 
board. Since the days of the tattooed bar- 
barians who called themselves Illyrlan, this 
coast has been ruled In turn by Phoenicians, 
Celts, Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, 
Byzantines, Croats, Serbs, Bulgars, Huns, 
Avars, Saracens, Normans, Magyars, Genoese, 
Venetians, Tartars, Bosnians, Turks, French, 
Russians, Montenegrins, British, Austrlans, 
Italians — and now by Americans, for from 
Cape Planca southward to Ragusa, a distance 
of something over a hundred miles, the United 
States Is the governing power and an American 
admiral holds undisputed sway. 

Leaning over the rail as we fled southward 
I lost myself in dreams of far-off days. In 
my mind I could see, sweeping past In Imaginary 
review, those other vessels which, all down the 



84 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

ages, had skirted these same shores : the purple 
sails of Phoenicia, Greek galleys bearing colo- 
nists from Cnidus, Roman triremes with the 
slaves sweating at the oars, high-powered, low- 
waisted Norman caravels with the arms of their 
marauding masters painted on their bellowing 
canvas, stately Venetian carracks with carved 
and gilded sterns, swift-sailing Uskok pirate 
craft, their decks crowded with swarthy men in 
skirts and turbans, Genoese galleons, laden with 
the products of the hot lands, French and Eng- 
lish frigates with brass cannon peering from 
their rows of ports, the grim, gray monsters of 
the Hapsburg navy. And then I suddenly 
awoke, for, coming up from the southward at 
full speed, their slanting funnels vomiting great 
clouds of smoke, were four long, low, lean, in- 
credibly swift craft, ostrich-plumes of snowy 
foam curling from their bows, which sped past 
us like wolfhounds running with their noses to 
the ground. As they passed I could see quite 
plainly, flaunting from each taffrail, a flag of 
stripes and stars. 

The sun was sinking behind Italy when, 
threading our way amid the maze of Islands and 
Islets which border the Dalmatian shore, we 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 85 

saw beyond our bows, silhouetted against the 
rose-coral of the evening sky, the slender cam- 
paniles and the crenellated ramparts of Zara. 
It was so still and calm and beautiful that I 
felt as though I were looking at a scene upon a 
stage and that the curtain would descend at any 
moment and destroy the illusion. The little 
group of white-clad naval officers who greeted 
us upon the quay informed us that the governor- 
general, Admiral Count Millo, had placed at 
our disposal the yacht Zara^ formerly the prop- 
erty of the Austrian Emperor, on which we 
were to live during our stay in the Dalmatian 
capital. It was a peculiarly thoughtful thing 
to do, for the summers are hot in Zara, the 
city's few hotels leave much to be desired, and 
a stay at a palace, even that of a provincial 
governor, is hedged about by a certain amount 
of formality and restrictions. But the Zara^ 
while we were aboard her, was as much ours 
as the Mayflower Is Mr. Wilson's. We oc- 
cupied the spacious after-cabins, exquisitely 
paneled in white mahogany, which had been 
used by the Austrian archduchesses and whose 
furnishings still bore the imperial crown, and 
our breakfasts were served under the white 



86 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

awnings stretched over the after-deck, where, 
lounging In the grateful shade, we could look 
out across the harbor, dotted with the gaudy 
sails of fishing craft and bordered by the walls 
and gardens of the quaint old city, to the Islands 
of Arbe and Pago, rising, like huge, uncut 
emeralds, from the lazy southern sea. At noon 
we usually lunched with a score or more of 
staff-officers in the large, cool dining-room of 
the officers' mess, and at night we dined with 
the governor-general and his family at the 
palace, formerly the residence of the Austrian 
viceroys. Dinner over, we lounged In cane 
chairs on the terrace, served by white-clad, 
silent-footed servants with coffee, cigarettes, 
and the maraschino for which this coast is 
famous. Those were never-to-be-forgotten eve- 
nings, for the gently heaving breast of the 
Adriatic glowed with a phosphorescent lumin- 
ousness, the air was heavy with the fragrance 
of orange, almond, and oleander, the sky was 
like purple velvet, and the stars seemed very 
near. 

Though the population of Dalmatia is over- 
whelmingly Slav, quite two-thirds of the 14,000 
inhabitants of Zara, its capital, are Italian. 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 87 

Yet, were it not for the occasional Morlachs in 
their picturesque costumes seen in the markets 
or on the wharfs, one would not suspect the 
presence of any Slav element In the town, for 
the dim and tortuous streets and the spacious 
squares bear Italian names — Via del Duomo, 
Riva Vecchia, Piazza della Colonna; crouching 
above the city gates Is the snarling Lion of St. 
Mark, and everywhere one hears the liquid 
accents of the Latin. Zara, like Flume, Is an 
Italian colony set down on a Slavonian shore, 
and, like Its sister-city to the north, it bears the 
indelible and unmistakable imprint of Italian 
civilization. 

The long, narrow strip of territory sand- 
wiched between the Adriatic and the DInarIc 
Alps which comprised the Austrian province of 
Dalmatia, though upward of 200 miles in 
length, has an area scarcely greater than that 
of Connecticut and a population smaller than 
that of Cleveland. Scarcely more than a tenth 
of its whole surface is under the plow, the 
rest, where it is not altogether sterile, consisting 
of mountain pasture. With the exception of 
scattered groves on the landward slopes, the 
country is virtually treeless, the forests for 



88 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

which Dalmatia was once famous having been 
cut down by the Venetian ship-builders or 
wantonly burned by the Uskok pirates, while 
every attempt at replanting has been frustrated 
by the shallowness of the soil, the frequent 
droughts, and the multitudes of goats which 
browse on the young trees. The dreary ex- 
panse of the Bukovica, lying between Zara and 
the Bosnian frontier, is, without exception, the 
most inhospitable region that I have ever seen. 
For mile after mile, far as the eye can see, the 
earth is overlaid by a thick stratum of jagged 
limestone, so rough that no horse could traverse 
it, so sharp and flinty that a quarter of an hour's 
walking across it would cut to pieces the stout- 
est pair of boots. Under the rays of the sum- 
mer sun these rocks become as hot as the top 
of a stove; so hot, indeed, that eggs can be 
cooked upon them, while metal objects exposed 
for only a few minutes to the sun will burn 
the hand. Scattered here and there over this 
terrible plateau are tiny farmsteads, their 
houses and the walls shutting in the little 
patches under cultivation being built from the 
stones obtained in clearing the soil, a task re- 
quiring incredible patience. No wonder that 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 89 

the folk who dwell in them are characterized 
by expressions as stony and hopeless as the soil 
from which they wring a wretched existence. 

No seaboard of the Mediterranean, save 
only the coast of Greece, is so deeply indented 
as the Dalmatian littoral, with its unending suc- 
cession of rock-bound bays, as frequent as the 
perforations on a postage-stamp, and its thick 
fringe of islands. In calm weather the chan- 
nels between these islands and the mainland 
resemble a chain of landlocked lakes, hke those 
in the Adirondacks or In southern Ontario, be- 
ing connected by narrow straits called canales, 
briUIantly clear to a depth of several fathoms. 
As a rule, the surrounding hills are rugged, 
bleached yellow or pale russet, and destitute of 
verdure, but their monotony Is relieved by the 
half-ruined castles and monasteries which, 
perched on the rocky heights, perpetually re- 
minded me of Howard Pyle's paintings, and by 
the medieval charm of Zara, Sebenico, Spalato, 
Ragusa, Arbe, and Curzola, whose architecture, 
though predominantly Venetian, bears charac- 
teristic traces of the many races which have 
ruled them. 

Just as Italy insisted on pushing her new 



90 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

borders up to the Brenner so that she might 
have a strategic frontier on the north, so she 
lays claim to the larger of the Dalmatian is- 
lands — Lissa, Lesina, Curzola, and certain 
others — in order to protect her Adriatic shores. 
A glance at the map will make her reasons 
amply plain. There stretches Italy's eastern 
coastline, 600 miles of it, from Venice to 
Otranto, with half a dozen busy cities and a 
score of fishing towns, as bare and unprotected 
as a bald man's hatless head. Not only is 
there not a single naval base on Italy's Adriatic 
coast south of Venice, but there is no harbor or 
inlet that can be transformed into one. Yet 
across the Adriatic, barely four hours steam 
by destroyer away, is a wilderness of islands 
and deep harbors where an enemy's fleet could 
lie safely hidden, from which it could emerge 
to attack Italian commerce or to bombard 
Italy's unprotected coast towns, and where it 
could take refuge when the pursuit became too 
hot. All down the ages the dwellers along 
Italy's eastern seaboard have been terrorized 
by naval raids from across the Adriatic. And 
Italy has determined that they shall be terror- 
ized no more. How history repeats itself! 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 91 

Just as Rome, twenty-two centuries ago, could 
not permit the neighboring Islands of Sicily to 
fall into the hands of Carthage, so Italy can- 
not permit these coastwise Islands, which form 
her only protection against attacks from the 
east, to pass under the control of the Jugo- 
slavs. 

"But," I said to the Italians with whom I 
discussed the matter, "why do you need any 
such protection now that the world is to have 
a League of Nations? Isn't that a sufficient 
guarantee that the Jugoslavs will never attack 
you?" 

"The League of Nations is in theory a splen- 
did thing," was their answer. "We subscribe 
to it in principle most heartily. But because 
there is a policeman on duty in your street, do 
you leave wide open your front door?" 

To be quite candid, I do not think that It Is 
against Jugoslavia, or, perhaps it would be 
more accurate to say, against an unaided Jugo- 
slavia, that Italy Is taking precautions. I have 
already said, I believe, that thinking Italians 
look with grave forebodings to the day when a 
great Slav confederation shall rise across the 
Adriatic, but that day, as they know full well, 



92 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

is still far distant. Italy's desperate insistence 
on retaining possession of the more important 
Dalmatian islands is dictated by a far more 
immediate danger than that. She is convinced 
that her next war will be fought, not with the 
weak young state of Jugoslavia, but with Jugo- 
slavia allied with France. Every Italian with 
whom I discussed the question — and I migh^ 
add, without boasting, many highly placed and 
well-informed Italians have honored me with 
their confidence — firmly believes that France 
is jealous of Italy's rapidly increasing power in 
the Mediterranean, and that she is secretly in- 
triguing with the Jugoslavs and the Greeks to 
prevent Italy obtaining commercial supremacy 
in the Balkans. I do not say that this is my 
opinion, mind you, but I do say that it is the 
opinion held by most Italians. I found that 
the resentment against the French for what the 
Italians term France's ^'betrayal" of Italy at 
the Peace Conference was almost universal; 
everywhere in Italy I found a deep-seated dis- 
trust of France's, commercial ambitions and 
political designs. Though the Italians admit 
that the Jugoslavs will not be able to build a 
navy for many years to come, they fear, or 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 93 

profess to fear, that the day is not immeasur- 
ably far distant when a French battle fleet, co- 
operating with the armies of Jugoslavia, \^ill 
threaten Italy's Adriatic seaboard. And they 
are determined that, should such a day ever 
come, French ships shall not be afforded the 
protection, as were the Austrian, of the Dal- 
matian islands. Italy, with her great modern 
battle fleet and her 5,000,000 fighting men, 
regards the threats of Jugoslavia with some- 
thing akin to contempt, but France, turned im- 
perialistic and arrogant by her victory over 
the Hun, Italy distrusts and fears, believing 
that, while protesting her friendship, she is 
secretly fomenting opposition to legitimate Ital- 
ian aspirations in the Balkan peninsula and in 
the Middle Sea. (Again let me remind you 
that I am giving you not my own, but Italy's 
point of view.) You will sneer at this, per- 
haps, as a phantasm of the imagination, but I 
assure you, with all the earnestness and em- 
phasis at my command, that this distrust of one 
great Latin nation for another, whether it is 
justified or not, forms a deadly menace to the 
future peace of the world. 



94 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Because I did not wish to confine my observa- 
tions to the coast towns, which are, after all, 
essentially Italian, I motored across Dalmatia 
at its widest part, from Zara, through Ben- 
kovac, Kistonje, and Knin, to the little hamlet 
of Kievo, on the Jugoslav frontier. Though 
the Slav population of the Dalmatian hinter- 
land is, according to the assertions of Belgrade, 
bitterly hostile to Italian rule, I did nc^ de- 
tect a single symptom of animosity toward the 
Italian officers who were my companions on 
the part of the peasants whom we passed. They 
displayed, on the contrary, the utmost courtesy 
and good feeling, the women, looking like huge 
and gaudily dressed dolls in their snowy blouses 
and embroidered aprons, courtesying, while the 
tall, fine-looking men gravely touched the little 
round caps which are the national head-gear 
of Dalmatia. 

Kievo is the last town in Dalmatia, being 
only a few score yards from the Bosnian fron- 
tier. Its little garrison was in command of 
a young Italian captain, a tall, slender fellow 
with the blond beard of a Viking and the 
dreamy eyes of a poet. He had been stationed 
at this lonely outpost for seven months, he told 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 95 

me, and he welcomed us as a man wrecked on 
a desert island would welcome a rescue party. 
In order to escape from the heat and filth and 
insects of the village, he had built in a near-by- 
grove a sort of arbor, with a roof of interlaced 
branches to keep off the sun. Its furnishings 
consisted of a home-made table, an army cot, 
two or three decrepit chairs, and a phonograph. 
I did not need to inquire where he had ob- 
tained the phonograph, for on its cover was 
stenciled the familiar red triangle of the 
Y. M. C. A. — the ''Yimka/' as the Italians 
call it — which operates more than 300 casus 
for the use of the Italian army. While our 
host was preparing a dubious-looking drink 
from sweet, bright-colored syrups and lukewarm 
water, I amused myself by glancing over the 
little stack of records on the table. They were, 
of course, nearly all Italian, but I came upon 
three that I knew well: ''Loch Lomond/^ ''Old 
Folks at Home;' and "So Long, Lettyr It 
was like meeting a party of old friends in a 
strange land. I tried the later record, and 
though it was not very clear, for the captain's 
supply of needles had run out and he had been 
reduced to using ordinary pins, it was startling 



96 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

to hear Charlotte Greenwood's familiar voice 
caroling ^^So long^ so long, Letty,^ there on 
the borders of Bosnia, with a picket of curious 
Jugoslavs, rifles across their knees, seated on 
the rocky hillside, barely a stone's throw away. 
Still, come to think about it, the war produced 
many contrasts quite as strange, as, for ex- 
ample, when the New York Irish, the old 69th, 
crossed the Rhine with the regimental band 
playing ^^The Sidewalks of New York,'* 

We touched at Sebenico, which is forty knots 
down the coast from Zara, In order to accept 
an invitation to lunch with Lieutenant-General 
Montanari, who commands all the Italian 
troops in Dalmatia. Now before we started 
down the Adriatic we had been warned that, 
because of President Wilson's attitude on the 
Fiume question, the feeling against Americans 
ran very high, and that from the Italians we 
must be prepared for coldness, if not for actual 
insults. Well, this luncheon at Sebenico was 
an example of the insults we received and the 
coldness with which we were treated. Because 
our destroyer was late, half a hundred busy 
officers delayed their midday meal for two 
hours In order not to sit down without us. The 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 97 

table was decorated with American flags, and 
other American flags had been hand-painted on 
the menus. And, as a final affront, a destroyer 
had been sent across the Adriatic Sea to obtain 
lobsters because the general had heard that my 
wife was particularly fond of them. After that 
experience don't talk to me about Southern 
hospitality. Though the Italians bitterly resent 
President Wilson's interference in an affair 
which they consider peculiarly their own, their 
resentment does not extend to the President's 
countrymen. Their attitude is aptly illustrated 
by an incident which took place at the mess 
of a famous regiment of Bersaglieri, when the 
picture of President Wilson, which had hung 
on the wall of the mess-hall, opposite that of 
the King, was taken down — and an American 
flag hung in its place. 

The most interesting building in Sebenico is 
the cathedral, which was begun when America 
had yet to be discovered. The chief glory of 
the cathedral is its exterior, with its superb 
carved doors, its countless leering, grinning 
gargoyles — said to represent the evil spirits ex- 
pelled from the church — and a broad frieze, 
running entirely around the edifice, composed 



98 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

of sculptured likenesses of the architects, artists, 
sculptors, masons, and master-builders who 
participated in its construction. Put collars, 
neckties, and derby hats on some of them and 
you would have striking likenesses of certain 
labor leaders of to-day. The next time a build- 
ing of note is erected in this country the coun- 
tenances of the bricklayers, hod-carriers, and 
walking delegates might be immortalized in 
some such fashion. I offer the suggestion to 
the labor-unions for what it is worth. 

Throughout all the years of Austrian domi- 
nation the citizens of Sebenico remained loyal 
to their Italian traditions, as is proved by the 
medallions ornamenting the fagade of the 
cathedral, each of which bears the image of 
a saint. One of these sculptured saints, it was 
pointed out to me, has the unmistakable fea- 
tures of Victor Emanuel I, another those of 
Garibaldi. Thus did the Italian workmen of 
their day cunningly express their defiance of 
Austria's tyranny by ornamenting one of her 
most splendid cathedrals with the heads of 
Italian heroes. Imagine carving the heads of 
Elihu Root and Charles E. Hughes on the 
facade of Tammany Hall! 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 99 

Next to the cathedral, the most interesting 
building in Sebenico is the insect-powder fac- 
tory. It is a large factory and does a thriving 
business, the need for its product being Balkan- 
wide. If, for upward of five months, you had 
fought nightly engagements with the cimex lec- 
tularius, you would understand how vital is an 
ample supply of powder. Believe me or not, 
as you please, but in many parts of Dalmatia 
and Albania we were compelled to defend our 
beds against nocturnal raiding-parties by raising 
veritable ramparts of insect-powder, very much 
as in Flanders we threw up earthworks against 
the assaults of the Hun, while in Monastir the 
only known way of obtaining sleep is to set the 
legs of one's bed in basins filled with kerosene. 

Four hours steaming south from Sebenico 
brought us to Spalato, the largest city of Dal- 
matia and one of the most picturesquely situ- 
ated towns in the Levant. It owes its name to 
the great palace {palatium) of Diocletian, 
within the precincts of which a great part of 
the old town is built and around which have 
sprung up its more modern suburbs. Cosily 
ensconced between the stately marble columns 
which formed the palace's fagade are fruit, 



100 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

tobacco, barber, shoe, and tailor shops, whose 
proprietors drive a roaring trade with the 
sailors from the international armada as- 
sembled in the harbor. A great hall, which 
had probably originally been one of the vesti- 
bules of the palace, was occupied by the Knights 
of Columbus, the place being in charge of a 
khaki-clad priest, Father Mullane, of Johns- 
town, Pa., who twice daily dispensed true 
American hospitality, in the form of hot dough- 
nuts and mugs of steaming coffee, to the blue- 
jackets from the American ships. As there 
was no coal to be had in the town, he made the 
doughnuts with the aid of a plumber^s blowpipe. 
In the course of our conversation Father Mul- 
lane mentioned that he was living with the 
Serbian bishop — at least I think he was a bishop 
— of Spalato. 

"I suppose he speaks English or French," I 
remarked. 

*'He does not," was the answer. 

"Then you must have picked up some Serb 
or Italian," I hazarded. 

"Niver a wurrd of thim vulgar tongues do 
I know," said he. 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN loi 

''Then how do you and the bishop get 
along?" 

''Shure," said Father Mullane, In the rich 
brogue which is, I imagine, something of an 
affectation, "an' what is the use of bein' edu- 
cated for the church if we were not able to 
converse with ease an' fluency in iligant an' 
refined Latin?" 

When we were leaving Spalato, Father Mul- 
lane presented us with a Bon Voyage package 
which contained cigarettes, a box of milk choc- 
olate, and a five-pound tin of gum-drops. The 
cigarettes we smoked, the chocolate we ate, but 
the gum-drops we used for tips right across the 
Balkans. In lands whose people have not 
known the taste of sugar for five years we 
found that a handful of gum-drops would ac- 
complish more than money. A few men with 
Father MuUane's resource, tact, and sense of 
humor would do more than all the diplomats 
under the roof of the Hotel Crillon to settle 
internafional differences and make the nations 
understand each other. 

I had been warned by archaeological friends, 
before I went to Dalmatia, that the ruins of 
Salona, which once was the capital of Roman 



I02 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Dalmatia and the site of the summer palace oi 
Diocletian, would probably disappoint me. 
They date from the period of Roman deca- 
dence, so my learned friends explained, and, 
though following Roman traditions, frequently 
show traces of negligence, a fact which is ac- 
counted for by the haste with which the ailing 
and hypochondriac Emperor sought to build 
himself a retreat from the world. Still, the 
little excursion — for Salona is only five miles 
from Spalato — provided much that was worth 
the seeing: a partially excavated amphitheater, 
a long row of stone sarcophagi lying in a trench, 
one or two fine gates, and some beautifully pre- 
served mosaics. I must confess, however, that 
I was more interested in the modern aspects of 
this region than in its glorious past, for, stand- 
ing upon the massive walls of the Roman city, 
I looked down upon a panorama of power such 
as Diocletian had never pictured in his wildest 
dreams, for, moored in a long and impressive 
row, their stern-lines made fast to the Molo^ 
was a line of war-ships flying the flags of Eng- 
land, France, Italy, and the United States. On 
the right of the line, as befitted the fact that 
its commander was the senior naval officer and 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 103 

in charge of all this portion of the coast, was 
Admiral Andrews's flag-ship, the Olympia, but 
little changed, at least to the casual glance, 
since that day, more than twoscore years ago, 
when she blazed her way Into Manila Bay and 
won for us a colonial empire. On her bridge, 
outlined in brass tacks, I was shown Admiral 
Dewey's footprints, just as he stood at the be- 
ginning of the battle when he gave the order 
"You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." 
Of the 18,000 inhabitants of Spalato, less 
than a tenth are Italian, the general character 
of the town and the sympathies of its in- 
habitants being strongly pro-Slav. In fact, its 
streets were filled with Jugoslav soldiers, many 
of them still wearing the uniforms of the Aus- 
trian regiments in which they had served but 
with Serbian kepis, while others looked strange- 
ly familiar in khaki uniforms furnished them 
by the United States. It being warm weather, 
most of the men wore their coats unbuttoned, 
thereby displaying a considerable expanse of 
hairy chest or violently colored underwear and 
producing a somewhat negligee effect. Because 
of the presence in the town of the Jugoslav 
soldiery, the crews of the Italian war-ships were 



104 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

not permitted to go ashore with the sailors of 
the other nations, as Admiral Andrews feared 
that their presence might provoke unpleasant 
incidents. Hence their "shore leave" had, for 
nearly six months, been confined to the narrow 
concrete Molo, where they were permitted to 
stroll in the evenings and where the Italian 
girls of the town came to see them. For a 
Jugoslav girl to have been seen in company with 
an Italian sailor would have meant her social 
ostracism, if nothing worse. 

Though Italy will unquestionably insist on 
the cession of certain of the Dalmatian islands, 
in order, as I have already pointed out, to as- 
sure herself a defensible eastern frontier, and 
though she will ask for Zara and possibly for 
Sebenico on the ground of their preponderantly 
Italian character, I believe that she is prepared 
to abandon her original claims to Dalmatia, 
which is, when all is said and done, almost 
purely Slavonian, Jugoslavia thus obtaining 
nearly 550 miles of coast. Now I will be quite 
frank and say that when I went to Dalmatia I 
was strongly opposed to the extension of Italian 
rule over that region. And I still believe that 
it would be a political mistake. But, after see- 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 105 

ing the country from end to end and talking 
with the Italian officials who have been tem- 
porarily charged with its administration, I have 
become convinced that they have the best in- 
terests of the people genuinely at heart and 
that the Dalmatians might do worse, so far as 
justice and progress are concerned, than to in- 
trust their future to the guidance of such men. 
It had been our original intention to steam 
straight south from Spalato to the Bocche di 
Cattaro and Montenegro, but, being foot-loose 
and free and having plenty of coal in the Sirio^s 
bunkers, we decided to make a detour in order 
to visit the Curzolane Islands. In case you can- 
not recall its precise situation, I might remind 
you that the Curzolane Archipelago, consist- 
ing of several good-sized islands — Brazza, 
Lesina, Lissa, Melida, and Curzola — and a 
great number of smaller ones, lies off the Dal- 
matian coast, almost opposite Ragusa. From 
Spalato we laid our course due south, past Solta, 
famed for its honey produced from rosemary 
and the cistus-rose; skirted the wooded shores 
of Brazza, the largest island of the group, 
rounded Capo Pellegrino and entered the lovely 
harbor of Lesina. We did not anchor but, 



io6 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

slowing to half-speed, made the circuit of the 
little port, running close enough to the shore 
to obtain pictures of the famous Loggia built 
by Sanmichell, the Fondazo', the ancient Vene- 
tian arsenal, and the crumbling Spanish fort, 
perched high on a crag above the town. Then 
south by west again, past Lissa, the western- 
most Island of the group, where an Italian fleet 
under Persano was defeated and destroyed by 
an Austrian squadron under Tegetthof in 1866. 
A marble lion in the local cemetery commemo- 
rated the victory and marked the resting-places 
of the Austrian dead, but when the Italians took 
possession of the Island after the Armistice 
they changed the inscription on the monument 
so that it now commemorates their final victory 
over Austria. It was not, I think, a very sports- 
manlike proceeding. 

Leaving Lissa to starboard, we steamed 
through the Canale di Sabbioncello, with 
exquisite panoramas unrolling on either hand, 
and dropped anchor off the quay of Curzola, 
where the governor of the Islands, Admiral 
Piazza, awaited us with his staff. In spite of 
the bleakness of the surrounding mountains, 
Curzola is one of the most exquisitely beautiful 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 107 

little towns that I have ever seen. The next 
time you are In the Adriatic you should not fail 
to go there. Time and the hand of man — for 
the people are a color-loving race — have given 
many tints, soft and bright, to Its roofs, towers, 
and ramparts. It Is a town of dim, narrow, 
winding streets, of steep flights of worn stone 
steps, of moss-covered archways, and of some 
of the most splendid specimens of the domestic 
architecture of the Middle Ages that exist out- 
side of the Street of the Crusaders In Rhodes. 
The sole modern touches are the costumes of 
the Islanders, and they are sufficiently pic- 
turesque not to spoil the picture. How the place 
has escaped the motion-picture people I fail 
to understand. (As a matter of fact. It hasn't, 
for I took with me an operator and a camera 
— the first the Islanders had ever seen.) Be- 
sides the Cathedral of San Marco, with Its 
splendid doors, its exquisitely carved choir- 
stalls black with age and use. Its choir balustrade 
and pulpit of translucent alabaster, and Its dim 
old altar-piece by Tintoretto, the town boasts 
the Loggia or council chambers, the palace of 
the Venetian governors, the noble mansion of 
the Arnlerl, and, brooding over all, a towering 



io8 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

campanile, five centuries old. The Lion of St. 
Mark, which appears on several of the public 
buildings, holds beneath its paw a closed instead 
of an open book — symbolizing, so I was told, 
the islanders' dissatisfaction with certain laws 
of the Venetians. 

But the phase of my visit which I enjoyed 
the most was when Admiral Piazza took us 
across the bay, on a Detroit-built submarine- 
chaser, to a Franciscan monastery dating from 
the fifteenth century. We were met by the 
abbot at the water-stairs, .and, after being 
shown the beautiful Venetian Gothic cloisters, 
with alabaster columns whose carving was al- 
most lacelike in its delicate tracery, we were 
led along a wooded path beside the sea, over 
a carpet of pine-needles, to a cloistered rose- 
garden, in which stood, amid a bower of blos- 
soms, a blue and white statue of the Virgin. 
The fragrance of the flowers in the little en- 
closure was like the incense in a church, above 
our heads the great pines formed a canopy of 
green, and the music was furnished by the birds 
and the murmuring sea. Here we seemed a 
world away from the waiting armies and the 
great gray battleships, from the quarrels of 



BORDERLAND— SLAV AND LATIN 109 

Latin and Slav. It was the first real peace that 
I had known after five years of war, and I 
should have liked to remain there longer. But 
Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, all the un- 
happy, war-torn lands of the Near East lay 
before me, and I turned reluctantly away. But 
my thoughts keep harking back to the little 
town beside the turquoise bay, to the restful- 
ness of Its old, old buildings, to the perfume of 
its flowers, and the whispering voice of its 
turquoise sea. So some day, when the world 
is really at peace and there are no more wars 
to write about, I think that I shall go back to 
where 

"Far, far from here, 
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay 
Among the green Illyrian hills." 



CHAPTER III 
THE CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 

WE stood on the forward deck of the 
Sirio as she slipped southward, through 
the placid waters of the Adriatic, at twenty 
knots an hour. Less than a league away the 
Balkan mountains, savage, mysterious, for- 
bidding, rose in a rocky rampart against the 
eastern sky. 

*'Did it ever occur to you," remarked the 
Italian officer who stood beside me, a noted 
historian in his own land, "that four great 
empires have died as a result of their lust for 
domination over the wretched lands which lie 
beyond those mountains? Austria coveted Ser- 
bia — and the empire of the Hapsburgs is In 
fragments now. Russia, seeing her influence In 
the peninsula Imperiled, hastened to the sup- 
port of her fellow Slavs — but Russia has gone 
down in red ruin, and the Romanoffs are dead. 

no 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES iii 

Germany, seeking a gateway to the warm water, 
and a highway to the East, seized on the ex- 
cuse thus offered to launch her waiting armies 
— and the empire reared by the Hohenzollerns 
is bankrupt and broken. Turkey fought to re- 
tain her hold on such European territory as 
still remained under the crescent banner. To- 
day a postmortem is about to be held on the 
Turkish Empire and the House of Osman. 
Think of it ! Four great empires, four ancient 
dynasties, lie buried over there in the Balkans. 
It is something more than a range of mountains 
at which we are looking; it Is the wall of a 
cemetery." 

Rada di Antivari is a U-shaped bay, the color 
of a turquoise, from whose shores the Monte- 
negrin mountains rise In tiers, like the seats of 
an arena. We put in there unexpectedly because 
a hora^ sweeping suddenly down from the 
northwest, had lashed the Adriatic Into an ugly 
mood and our destroyer, whose decks were al- 
most as near the water as those of a submarine 
running awash, was not a craft that one would 
choose for comfort In such weather. Nor was 
our feeling of security increased by the knowl- 
edge that we were skirting the edges of one of 



112 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

the largest mine-fields In the Adriatic. But the 
Sirio had scarcely poked her sharp nose around 
the end of the breakwater which provides the 
excuse for dignifying the exposed roadstead of 
Antivari (with the accent on the second 
syllable, so that it rhymes with ^'discovery") 
by the name of harbor before I saw what we 
had stumbled upon some form of trouble. 
There were three other Italian destroyers in 
the harbor but, instead of being moored snugly 
alongside the quay, they were strung out in a 
semblance of battle formation, so that their 
deck-guns, from which the canvas muzzle-covers 
had been removed, could sweep the rocky 
heights above and around them. A string of 
signal-flags broke out from our masthead and 
was answered in like fashion by the flag-ship of 
the flotilla, after which formal exchange of 
greetings our wireless began to crackle and 
splutter in an animated explanation of our un- 
expected appearance. Our hawsers had scarce- 
ly been made fast before a launch left the flag- 
ship and came plowing toward us, a knot of 
white-uniformed oflficers in the stern. From 
the blue rug with the Italian arms, which, as I 
could see through my glasses, was draped over 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 113 

the stern-sheets, I deduced that the commander 
of the flotilla was paying us a visit. 

**You have come at rather an unfortunate 
moment/' he said after the introductions were 
over. "Last night we were fired on by Jugo- 
slavs on the mountainside over there," indicat- 
ing the heights across the harbor. "In fact, 
the firing has just ceased. There must have 
been a thousand of them or more, judging from 
the flashes. But I hope that madame will not 
be alarmed, for she is really quite safe. They 
are firing at long range, and the only danger is 
from a stray bullet. Still, it is most embarrass- 
ing. On madame's account I am sorry." 

His manner was that of a host apologizing 
to a guest because the children of the family 
have measles and at the same time attempting 
to convince the guest that measles are hardly 
ever contagious. I relieved his quite obvious 
embarrassment by assuring him that Mrs. 
Powell much preferred taking chances with 
snipers' bullets to the discomfort of a destroyer 
in an ugly sea, and that, having journeyed six 
thousand miles for the express purpose of see- 
ing what was happening in the Balkans, we 



114 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

would be disappointed if nothing happened 
at all. 

When I left Paris for the Adriatic I carried 
with me the impression, as the result of con- 
versations with members of the various peace 
delegations, that the people of Montenegro 
were almost unanimously in favor of annexa- 
tion to Serbia, thereby becoming a part of the 
new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slov- 
enes. But before I had spent twenty-four hours 
in Montenegro itself I discovered that on the 
subject of the political future of their little coun- 
try the Montenegrins are very far from being 
of the same mind. And, being a simple, 
primitive folk, and strong believers in the 
superiority of the bullet to the ballot, instead 
of sitting down and arguing the matter, they 
take cover behind a convenient rock and, when 
their political opponents pass by, take pot-shots 
at them. 

My preconceived opinions about political 
conditions in Montenegro were largely based 
on the knowledge that shortly after the signing 
of the Armistice a Montenegrin National As- 
sembly, so called, had met at Podgoritza, and, 
after declaring itself in favor of the deposition 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 115 

of King Nicholas and the Petrovltch dynasty, 
which has ruled In Montenegro since William 
of Orange sat on the throne of England, voted 
for the union of Montenegro with the Kingdom 
of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Just how 
representative of the real sentiments of the 
nation was this assembly I do not know, but 
that the sentiment in favor of such a surrender 
of Montenegrin independence Is far from being 
overwhelming would seem to be proved by the 
fact that the Serbs, in order to hold the terri- 
tory thus given to them, have found it necessary 
to install a Serbian military governor in 
Cetinje, to replace by Serbs all the Montenegrin 
prefects, to raise a special gendarmerie re- 
cruited from men who are known to be friendly 
to Serbia and officered by Serbs, and to occupy 
this sister-state, which, It Is alleged, requested 
union with Serbia of Its own free will, with two 
battalions of Serbian infantry. If Montenegrin 
sentiment for the union is as overwhelming as 
Belgrade claims, then It seems to me that the 
Serbs are acting in a rather high-handed 
fashion. 

I talked with a good many people while I 
was in Montenegro, and I was especially care- 



ii6 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

ful not to meet them through the medium of 
either Serbs or Italians. From these conversa- 
tions I learned that the Montenegrins are di- 
vided into three factions. The first of these, 
and the smallest, desires the return of the 
King. It represents the old conservative ele- 
ment and is composed of the men who have 
fought under him in many wars. The second 
faction, which is the noisiest and at present 
holds the reins of power, advocates the annex- 
ation of Montenegro to Serbia and the deposi- 
tion of King Nicholas In favor of the Serbian 
Prince-Regent Alexander. The third party, 
which, though It has no means of making its 
desires known, Is, I am Inclined to believe, the 
largest, and which numbers among its support- 
ers the most level-headed and far-seeing men 
in the country, while frankly distrustful of Ser- 
bian ambitions and unwilling to submit to Ser- 
bian dictatorship, possesses sufficient vision to 
recognize the political and commercial ad- 
vantages which would accrue to Montenegro 
were she to become an equal partner In a con- 
federation of those Jugoslav countries which 
claim the same racial origin. Most thoughtful 
Montenegrins have always been in favor of a 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 117 

union of all the southern Slavs, along the gen- 
eral lines, perhaps, of the Germanic Con- 
federation, but this must not be Interpreted as 
Implying that they are In favor of a union 
merely of Montenegro with Serbia, which 
would mean the absorption of the smaller coun« 
try by the larger one. They are determined 
that, If such a confederation Is brought about, 
Serbia shall not occupy the dictatorial position 
which Prussia did In Germany, and that the 
Karageorgevltches shall not play a role analo- 
gous to that of the Hohenzollerns. Montenegro, 
remember, threw off the Turkish yoke a cen- 
tury and three-quarters before Serbia was able 
to achieve her liberty, and the patriotic among 
her people feel that this hard-won, long-held 
independence should not lightly be thrown 
away. 

It Is not generally known, perhaps, that, when 
Austria declared war on Serbia In August, I9i4> 
an offensive and defensive alliance alrealdy 
existed between Serbia, Greece, and Monte- 
negro. We know how highly Greece valued 
her signature to that treaty. Montenegro, with 
an area two-thirds that of New Jersey, and a 
population less than that of Milwaukee, could 



ii8 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

easily have used her weakness as an excuse for 
standing aside, like Greece. Very likely Aus- 
tria would not have molested her and the little 
country would have been spared the horrors of 
a third war within two years. But King 
Nicholas's conception of what constituted 
loyalty and honor was different from Constan- 
tlne's. Instead of accepting the extensive ter- 
ritorial compensations offered by the Austrian 
envoy if Montenegro would remain neutral, 
King Nicholas wired to the Serbian Premier, 
M. Pachitch: *^Serhia may rely on the brotherly 
and unconditional support of Montenegro in 
this moment, on which depends the fate of the 
Serbian nation, as well as on any other oc- 
casion,^ and took the field at the head of 40,- 

000 troops — all the men able to bear arms in 
the little kingdom. 

It has been repeatedly asserted by his 
enemies that King Nicholas sold out to the 
Austrians and that, therefore, he deserves 
neither sympathy nor consideration. As to this 

1 have no direct knowledge. How could I? 
But, after talking with nearly all of the lead- 
ing actors in the Montenegrin drama, it is my 
personal belief that the King, though guilty of 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 119 

many indiscretions and errors of policy, did not 
betray his people. I am not Ignorant of the 
King's shortcomings in other respects. But in 
this case I believe that he has been grossly 
maligned. If he did sell out he drove an ex- 
tremely poor bargain, for he Is living in exile, 
in extremely straitened circumstances, his only 
luxury a car which the French Government 
loans him. It is difficult to believe that, had 
he been a traitor to the Allied cause, the Brit- 
ish, French, and Italian governments would 
continue to recognize him, to pay him subven- 
tions, and to treat him as a ruling sovereign. 
Certain American diplomats have told me that 
they were convinced that the King had a secret 
understanding with Austria, though they ad- 
mitted quite frankly that their convictions were 
based on suspicions which they could not prove. 
To offset this, a very exalted personage, whose 
name for obvious reasons I cannot mention, but 
whose integrity and whose sources of Informa- 
tion are beyond question, has given me his word 
that, to his personal knowledge, Nicholas had 
neither a treaty nor a secret understanding with 
the enemy. 

*'The propaganda against him had been so 



120 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

insidious and successful, however," my inforni- 
ant concluded, "that even his own soldiers were 
convinced that he had sold out to Austria and 
when the King attempted to rally them as they 
were falling back from the positions on Mount 
Lovtchen they jeered in his face, shouting that 
he had betrayed them. Yet I, who was on the 
spot and who am familiar with all the facts, 
give you my personal assurance that he had 
not." 

Nor did the King give up his sword to the 
Austrian commander at Grahovo, as was re- 
ported in the European press. When, with 
three-quarters of his country overrun by the 
Austrians, his chief of staff. Colonel Pierre 
Pechitch of the Serbian Army, reported^ ^Hence- 
forth all resistance and all fighting against the 
enemy is impossible. There is no chance of the 
situation improving,* King Nicholas, in the 
words of Baron Sonnino, then Itafian Foreign 
Minister, "preferred to withdraw into exile 
rather than sign a separate peace." 

I may be wrong in my conclusions, of course ; 
the cabinet ministers and the ambassadors and 
the generals in whose honor and truthfulness 
I believe may have deliberately deceived me, 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 121 

but, after a most painstaking and conscientious 
investigation, I am convinced that we have been 
misinformed and blinded by a propaganda 
against King Nicholas and his people which 
has rarely been equaled in audacity of untruth 
and dexterity of misrepresentation. To em- 
ploy the methods used by certain Balkan 
politicians in thier attempted elimination of 
Montenegro as an independent nation even 
Tammany Hall would be ashamed. 

When, upon the occupation of Montenegro 
by the Austrians, the King fled to France and 
established his government at Neuilly, near 
Paris — ^just as the fugitive Serbian Government 
was established at Corfu and the Belgian at Le 
Havre — England, France, and Italy entered 
into an agreement to pay him a subvention, for 
the maintenance of himself and his government, 
until such time as the status of Montenegro was 
definitely settled by the Peace Conference. 
England ceased paying her share of this sub- 
vention early in the spring of 19 19. When, a 
few weeks later, it was announced that King 
Nicholas was preparing to go to Italy to visit 
his daughter. Queen Elena, the French Min- 
ister to the court of Montenegro bluntly in- 



122 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

formed him that the French Government re- 
garded his proposed visit to Italy as the first 
step toward his return to Montenegro, and 
that, should he cross the French frontier, France 
would immediately break off diplomatic rela- 
tions with Montenegro and cease paying her 
share of the subvention. This would seem to 
bear out the assertion, which I heard every- 
where in the Balkans, that France is bending 
every effort toward building up a strong Jugo- 
slavia in order to offset Italy's territorial and 
commercial ambitions in the peninsula. The 
French indignantly repudiate the suggestion 
that they are coercing the Montenegrin King. 

"How absurd!" exclaimed the officials with 
whom I talked. "We holding King Nicholas 
a prisoner? The idea is preposterous. So far 
as France is concerned, he can return to Monte- 
negro whenever he chooses." 

Still, their protestations were not entirely 
convincing. Their attitude reminded me of the 
millionaire whose daughter. It was rumored, 
had eloped with the family chauffeur. 

"Sure, she can marry him if she wants to," 
he told the reporters. "I have no objection. 
She is free, white, and twenty-one. But if she 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 123 

does marry him I'll stop her allowance, cut 
her out of my will, and never speak to her 
again." 

Because it has been my privilege to know 
many sovereigns and because I have been hon- 
ored with the confidence of several of them, I 
have become to a certain extent immune from 
the spell which seems to be exercised upon the 
commoner by personal contact with the Lord's 
anointed. Save when I have had some definite 
mission to accomplish, I have never had any 
overwhelming desire "to grasp the hand that 
shook the hand of John L. Sullivan." To me 
it seems an impertinence to take the time of 
busy men merely for the sake of being able to 
boast about it afterward to your friends. But 
because, during my travels in Jugoslavia, I 
heard King Nicholas repeatedly denounced by 
Serbian officials with far more bitterness than 
they employed toward their late enemies and 
oppressors, the Hapsburgs, I was frankly eager 
for an opportunity to form my own opinions 
about Montengro's aged ruler. The oppor- 
tunity came when, upon my return to Paris, I 
was Informed that the King wished to meet me, 
he being desirous, I suppose, of talking with 



124 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

one who had come so recently from his own 
country. 

At that time the King, with the Queen, Prince 
Peter, and his two unmarried daughters, was 
occupying a modest suite in the Hotel Meurice, 
in the rue de Rivoli. He received me in a large, 
sun-flooded room overlooking the Tuileries 
Gardens. The bald, broad-shouldered, rather 
bent old man in the blue serge suit, with a tin 
ear-trumpet in his hand, who rose from behind 
a great flat-topped desk to greet me, was a 
startling contrast to the tall and vigorous 
figure, in the picturesque dress of a Monte- 
negrin chieftain, whom I had seen in Cetinje 
before the war. I looked at him with interest, 
for he has been on the throne longer than any 
living sovereign, he is the father-in-law of two 
Kings, and is connected by marriage with half 
the royal houses of Europe, and he is the last 
of that long line of patriarch-rulers who, lead- 
ing their armies in person, have for more than 
two centuries maintained the independence of 
the Black Mountain and its people. 

King Nicholas, as is generally known, has 
been remarkably successful in marrying off his 
daughters, two of them having married Kings, 







/ 



HIS MAJESTY NICHOLAS I, KIXG OF MONTENEGRO 

He has been on the throne longer than any living sovereign, he is the father-in-law of 
two kings, and is connected by marriage with half the royal houses of Europe 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 125 

two others grand dukes, while a fifth became 
the wife of a Battenberg prince. Remembering 
this, I was sorely tempted to ask the King as to 
the truth of a story which I had heard in Cetlnje 
years before. An English visitor to the Monte- 
negrin capital had been invited to lunch at the 
palace. During the meal the King asked his 
guest his Impressions of Montenegro. 

"Its scenery is magnificent," was the answer. 
"Its women are as beautiful and its men as 
handsome as any I have ever seen. Their cos- 
tumes are marvelously picturesque. But the 
country appears to have no exports, your 
Majesty." 

"Ah, my friend," replied the King, his eyes 
twinkling, "you forget my daughters." 

Another story, which illustrates the King's 
quick wit, was told me by his Majesty himself. 
When, some years before the Great War, Em- 
peror Francis Joseph, on a yachting cruise down 
the Adriatic, dropped anchor in the Bocche di 
Cattaro, the Montenegrin mountaineers cele- 
brated the imperial visit by lighting bonfires on 
their mountain peaks, a mile above the harbor. 

"I see that you dwell in the clouds," re- 
marked Francis Joseph to Nicholas, as they 



126 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

stood on the deck of the yacht after dinner 
watching the pin-points of flame twinkling high 
above them. 

'Where else can I live?" responded the 
Montenegrin ruler. "Austria holds the sea; 
Turkey holds the land; the sky is all that is 
left for Montenegro." 

One of the things which the King told me 
during our conversation will, I think, interest 
Americans. He said that when President Wil- 
son arrived in Paris he sent him an autograph 
letter, congratulating him on the great part he 
had played in bringing peace to the world and 
requesting a personal interview. 

*'But he never granted me the interview," 
said the King sadly. "In fact, he never ac- 
knowledged my letter." 

I attempted to bridge over the embarrassing 
pause by suggesting that perhaps the letter had 
never been received, but he waved aside the 
suggestion as unworthy of consideration. I 
gathered from what he said that royal letters 
do not miscarry. 

"I realize that I am an old man and that my 
country is a very small and unimportant one," 
he continued, "while your President is the ruler 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 127 

of a great country and a very busy man. Still, 
we In Montenegro had heard so much of Amer- 
ica's chivalrous attitude toward small, weak na- 
tions that I was unduly disappointed, perhaps, 
when my letter was Ignored. I felt that my age, 
and the fact that I have occupied the throne of 
Montenegro for sixty years, entitled me to the 
consideration of a reply.^' 

But we have strayed far from the road 
which we were traveling. Let us get back to 
the people of the mountains; I like them better 
than the politicians. Antlvarl, which nestles In 
a hollow of the hills, three or four miles Inland 
from the port of the same name. Is one of the 
most fascinating little towns In all the Balkans. 
Its narrow, winding, cobble-paved streets, 
shaded by canopies of grapevines and bordered 
by rows of squat, red-tiled houses, their plas- 
tered walls tinted pale blue, bright pink or yel- 
low, and the amazingly picturesque costumes of 
Its Inhabitants — slender, stately Montenegrin 
women in long coats of turquoise-colored broad- 
cloth piped with crimson, Bosnians in skin-tight 
breeches covered with arabesques of braid and 
jackets heavy with embroidery, Albanians wear- 
ing the starched and pleated skirts of linen 



128 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

known as fustanellas and comitadjis with car- 
tridge-filled bandoliers slung across their chests 
and their sashes bristling with assorted 
weapons, priests of the Orthodox Church with 
uncut hair and beards, wearing hats that look 
like inverted stovepipes, hook-nosed, white- 
bearded, patriarchal-looking Turks in flowing 
robes and snowy turbans, fierce-faced, keen- 
eyed mountain herdsmen in fur caps and coats 
of sheepskin — all these combined to makfe me 
feel that I had intruded upon the stage of a 
theater during a musical comedy performance, 
and that I must find the exit and escape before 
I was discovered by the stage-manager. If 
David Belasco ever visits Antivari he will prob- 
ably try to buy the place bodily and transport 
It to East Forty-fourth Street and write a play 
around It. 

There were two gentlemen in Antivari whose 
actions gave me unalloyed delight. One of 
them, so I was told, was the head of the local 
anti-Serbian faction; the other, a human arsenal 
with weapons sprouting from his person like 
leaves from an artichoke, was the chief of a 
notorious band of comitadjis, as the Balkan 
guerillas are called. They walked up and down 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 129 

the main street of Antivarl, arms over each 
other's shoulders, heads close together, lost in 
conversation, but glancing quickly over their 
shoulders every now and then to see if they 
were in danger of being overheard, exactly like 
the plotters in a motion-picture play. From 
the earnestness of their conversation, the 
obvious awe in which they were held by the 
townspeople, and the suspicious looks cast in 
their direction by the Serbian gendarmes, I 
gathered that in the near future things were 
going to happen in that region. Approaching 
them, I haltingly explained, in the few words 
of Serbian at my command, that I was an 
American and that I wished to photograph 
them. Upon comprehending my request they 
debated the question for some moments, then 
shook their heads decisively. It was evident 
that, in view of what they had in mind, they 
considered it imprudent to have their pictures 
floating around as a possible means of identifi- 
cation. But while they were discussing the mat- 
ter I took the liberty, without their knowledge, 
of photographing them anyway. It was as well, 
perhaps, that they did not see me do it, for 
the comitadji chieftain had a long knife, two 



130 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

revolvers, and four hand-grenades in his belt 
and a rifle slung over his shoulder. 

From Antivari to Valona by sea is about as 
far as from New York to Albany by the Hud- 
son, so that, leaving the Montenegrin port in 
the early morning, we had no difficulty in reach- 
ing the Albanian one before sunset. Before the 
war Valona — which, by the way, appears as 
Avlona on most American-made maps — was an 
insignificant fishing village, but upon Italy's oc- 
cupation of Albania it became a military base of 
great Importance. Whenever we had touched 
on our journey down the coast we had been 
warned against going to Valona because of the 
danger of contracting fever. The town stands 
on the edge of a marsh bordering the shore 
and, as no serious attempt has been made to 
drain the marsh or to clean up the town itself, 
about sixty per cent of the troops stationed 
there are constantly suffering from a peculiarly 
virulent form of malaria, similar to the Chagres 
fever of the Isthmus. The danger of contract- 
ing it was apparently considered very real, for, 
before we had been an hour in the quarters 
assigned to us, officers began to arrive with 
safeguards of one sort or another. One brought 




TWO CONSPIRATORS OF ANTIVARI 

They stood lost in conversation, heads close together, exactly like the 
plotters in a motion-picture play 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 131 

screens for all the windows; another provided 
mosquito-bars for the beds; a third presented 
us with disinfectant cubes, which we were to 
burn in our rooms several times each day; a 
fourth made us a gift of quinine pills, two of 
which we were to take hourly; still another of 
our hosts appeared with a dozen bottles of 
acqua minerale and warned us not to drink the 
local water, and, finally, to ensure us against 
molestation by prowling natives, a couple of 
sentries were posted beneath our windows. 

"Valona isn't a particularly healthy place to 
live in, I gather?" I remarked, by way of mak- 
ing conversation, to the officer who was our host 
at dinner that evening. His face was as yellow 
as old parchment and he was shaking with 
fever. 

*'Well," he reluctantly admitted, *'you must 
be careful not to be bitten by a mosquito or you 
will get malaria. And don't drink the water 
or you will contract typhoid. And keep away 
from the native quarter, for there is always 
more or less smallpox in the bazaars. And 
don't go wandering around the town after 
nightfall, for there's always a chance of some 
fanatic putting a knife between your shoulders. 



132 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Otherwise, there Isn't a healthier place in the 
world than Valona." 

Across the street from the building in which 
we were quartered was a large mosque, which, 
judging from the scaffoldings around it, was 
under repair. But though it seemed to be a 
large and important mosque, there was no work 
going forward on it. I commented upon this 
one day to an officer with whom I was walk- 
ing. 

"Do you see those storks up there?" he 
asked, pointing to a pair of long-legged birds 
standing beside their nest on the dome of the 
mosque. *'The stork is the sacred bird of 
Albania and if it makes its nest on a building 
which is in course of construction all work on 
that building ceases as long as the stork re- 
mains. A barracks we were erecting was held 
up for several months because a stork decided 
to make its nest in the rafters, whereupon the 
native workmen threw down their tools and 
quit." 

"In my country it is just the opposite," I 
observed. "There, when the stork comes, in- 
stead of stopping work they usually begin build- 
ing a nursery." 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 133 

I had long wished to cross Albania and Ma- 
cedonia, from the Adriatic to the iEgean, by 
motor, but the nearer we had drawn to Albania 
the more unlikely this project had seemed of 
realization. We were assured that there were 
no roads in the interior of the country or that 
such roads as existed were quite impassable for 
anything save ox-carts; that the country had 
been devastated by the fighting armies and that 
it would be impossible to get food en route; 
that the mountains we must cross were fre- 
quented by bandits and comitadjis and that we 
would be exposed to attack and capture; that, 
though the Italians might see us across Albania, 
the Serbian and Greek frontier guards would 
not permit us to enter Macedonia, and, as a 
final argument against the undertaking, we were 
warned that the whole country reeked with 
fever. But when I told the Governor-General 
of Albania, General Piacentini, what I wished 
to do every obstacle disappeared as though at 
the wave of a magician's wand. 

"You will leave Valona early to-morrow 
morning," he said, after a short conference with 
his Chief of Staff. *'You will be accompanied 
by an officer of my staff who was with the Ser- 



134 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

bian army on its retreat across Albania to the 
sea. The country is well garrisoned and I do 
not anticipate the slightest trouble, but, as a 
measure of precaution, a detachment of soldiers 
will follow your car in a motor-truck. You 
will spend the first night at Argirocastro, the 
second at Ljaskoviki, and the third at Koritza, 
which is occupied by the French. I will wire 
our diplomatic agent there to make arrange- 
ments with the Jugoslav authorities for you to 
cross the Serbian border to Monastir, where 
we still have a few troops engaged in salvage 
work. South of Monastir you will be in Greek 
territory, but I will wire the officer in command 
of the Italian forces at Salonika to take steps 
to facilitate your journey across Macedonia to 
the ^gean.'* 

This journey across one of the most savage 
and least-known regions in all Europe was ar- 
ranged as simply and matter-of-factly as a clerk 
in a tourist bureau would plan a motor trip 
through the White Mountains. With the ex- 
ception of one or two alterations in the itin- 
erary made necessary by tire trouble, the jour- 
ney was made precisely as General Piacentini 
planned it and so complete were the arrange- 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 135 

ments we found that meals and sleeping quar- 
ters had been prepared for us in tiny mountain 
hamlets whose very names we had never so 
much as heard before. 

Until its occupation by the Italians in 19 17 
Albania was not only the least-known region in 
Europe; it was one of the least-known regions 
in the world. Within sight of Italy, it was less 
known than many portions of Central Asia or 
Equatorial Africa. And it is still a savage 
country; a land but little changed since the days 
of Constantine and Diocletian; a land that for 
more than twenty centuries has acknowledged 
no master and, until the coming of the Italians, 
had known no law. Prior to the ItaUan occu- 
pation there was no government in Albania m 
the sense in which that word is generally used, 
there being, in fact, no civil government now, 
the tribal organization which takes its place 
being comparable to that which existed in Scot- 
land under the Stuart Kings. 

The term Albanian would probably pass un- 
recognized by the great majority of the inhabi- 
tants, who speak of themselves as Skipetars and 
of their country as Sccupnj. They are, most 
ethnologists agree, probably the most ancient 



136 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

race in Europe, there being every reason to be- 
lieve that they are the lineal descendants of 
those adventurous Aryans who, leaving the an- 
cestral home on the shores of the Caspian, 
crossed the Caucasus and entered Europe in the 
earliest dawn of history. One of the tribes of 
this migrating host, straying into these lonely 
vallerys, settled there with their flocks and herds, 
living the same life, speaking the same tongue, 
following the same customs as their Aryan an- 
cestors, quite indifferent to the great changes 
which were taking place in the world without 
their mountain wall. Certain it is that Albania 
was already an ancient nation when Greek his- 
tory began. Unlike the other primitive popu- 
lations of the Balkan peninsula, which became 
in time either Hellenized, Latinized or Slavon- 
icized, the Albanians have remained almost un- 
affected by foreign influences. It strikes me as 
a strange thing that the courage and determina- 
tion with which this remarkable race has main- 
tained itself in its mountain stronghold all down 
the ages, and the grim and unyielding front 
which it has shown to innumerable invaders, 
have evoked so little appreciation and admira- 
tion in the outside world. History contains no 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 137 

such epic as that of the Albanian national hero, 
George Castriota, better known as Scanderbeg, 
who, with his ill-armed mountaineers, over- 
whelmed twenty-three Ottoman armies, one 
after another.* 

Picture, if you please, a country remarkably 
similar in its physical characteristics to the Blue 
Ridge Region of our own South, with the same 
warm summers and the same brief, cold win- 
ters, peopled by the same poverty-stricken, illit- 
erate, quarrelsome, suspicious, arms-bearing, 
feud-practising race of mountaineers, and you 
will have the best domestic parallel of Albania 
that I can give you. Though during the sum- 
mer months extremely hot days are followed by 
bitterly cold nights, and though fever is preva- 
lent along the coast and in certain of the valleys, 
Albania is, climatically speaking, "a white man's 
country." Its mountains are believed to con- 
tain iron, coal, gold, lead, and copper, but the 
internal condition of the country has made It 
quite impossible to Investigate Its mineral re- 
sources, much less to develop them. With the 

* Portions of this sketch of the Albanians are drawn 
from an article which I wrote some years ago for The 
Independent. E. A. P. 



138 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

exception of Valona, which has been developed 
into a tolerably good harbor, there are no ports 
worthy of the name, Durazzo, Santi Quaranta, 
and San Giovanni de Medua being mere open 
roadsteads, almost unprotected from the sea 
winds. There are no railroads in Albania, and 
the indifference of the Turkish Government, 
the corruption of the local chiefs, and the blood- 
feuds in which the people are almost constantly 
engaged, have resulted in a total absence of 
good roads. This condition has been remedied 
by the Italians, however, who, in order to facili- 
tate their military operations, constructed a sys- 
tem of highways very nearly equal to those they 
built in the Alps. Though the greater part of 
the country is a stranger to the plow, the 
small areas which are under cultivation pro- 
duce excellent olive oil, wine of a tolerable qual- 
ity, a strong but moderately good tobacco, and 
considerable grain; Albania, in spite of its 
primitive agricultural methods, furnishing most 
of the corn supply of the Dalmatian coast. 

Albania, so far as I am aware, is the only 
country where you can buy a wife on the instal- 
ment plan, just as you would buy a piano or an 
encyclopedia or a phonograph. It is quite true 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 139 

that there are plenty of countries where women 
can be purchased — In CIrcassIa, for example, 
and In China, and In the Solomon Group — but 
In those places the prospective bridegroom is 
compelled to pay down the purchase price In 
cash, not being afforded the convenience of 
opening an account. In Albania, however, such 
things are better done, a partial payment on 
the purchase price of the girl being paid to her 
parents when the engagement takes place, after 
which she Is no longer offered for sale, but Is 
set aside, like an article on which a deposit has 
been made, until the final Instalment has been 
paid, when she Is delivered to her future hus- 
band. 

Albania Is likewise the only country that I 
know of where every one concerned becomes 
Indignant If a murderer Is sent to prison. The 
relatives of the dear departed resent It because 
they feel that the judge has cheated them out 
of their revenge, which they would probably 
obtain, were the murderer at large, by putting 
a knife or a pistol bullet between his shoulders. 
The murderer, of course, objects to the sentence 
both because he does not like Imprisonment and 
because he believes that he could escape from 



140 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

the relatives of his victim were he given his free- 
dom. If he or his friends have any money, 
however, the affair is usually settled on a finan- 
cial basis, the feud is called off, the murderer 
is pardoned, and every one concerned, save only 
the dead man. Is as pleased and friendly as 
though nothing had ever happened to interrupt 
their friendly relations. A quaint people, the 
Albanians. 

In order to develop the resources of the coun- 
try and to transform its present poverty into 
prosperity, Italy has already inaugurated an 
extensive scheme of public works, which in- 
cludes the reclamation of the marshes the re- 
forestation of the mountains, the reconstruction 
of the highways, the improvement of the ports, 
and the construction of a railway straight across 
Albania, from the coast at Durazzo to Monas- 
tlr, in Serbian Macedonia, where it will connect 
with the line from Belgrade to Salonika. This 
railway will follow the route of one of the most 
Important arteries of the Roman Empire, the 
Via Egnatia, that mighty military and com- 
mercial highway, a trans-Adriatic continuation 
of the Via Appla, which, starting from Dyrac- 
chlum, the modern Durazzo, crossed the Cavaia 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 141 

plain to the Skumbl, climbed the slopes of the 
Candavian range, and traversing Macedonia 
and Thrace, ended at the Bosphorus, thus link- 
ing the capitals of the western and the eastern 
empires. We traveled this age-old highway, 
down which the four-horse chariots of the 
Caesars had rumbled two thousand years ago, 
in another sort of chariot, with the power of 
twenty times four horses beneath its sloping 
hood. This will entitle us in future years to 
listen with the condescension of pioneers to the 
tales of the tourists who make the same trans- 
Balkan journey in a comfortable wagon-lit, 
with hot and cold running water and electric 
lights and a dining-car ahead. It is a great 
thing to have seen a country in the pioneer stage 
of its existence. 

In that portion of Southern Albania known 
as North Epirus we motored for an entire day 
through a region dotted with what had been, 
apparently, fairly prosperous towns and villages 
but which are now heaps of fire-blackened ruins. 
This wholesale devastation, I was informed to 
my astonishment, was the work of the Greeks, 
who, at about the time the Germans were horri- 
fying the civilized world by their conduct in 



142 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Belgium, were doing precisely the same thing, 
It is said, but on a far more extensive scale, in 
Albania. As a result of these atrocities, per- 
petrated by a so-called Christian and profess- 
edly civilized nation, a large number of Alba- 
nian towns and villages were destroyed by fire 
or dynamite. Though I have been unable to ob- 
tain any reliable figures, the consensus of opin- 
ion among the Albanians, the French and Ital- 
ian officials, and the American missionaries and 
relief workers with whom I talked is that be- 
tween 10,000 and 12,000 men, women, and 
children were shot, bayoneted, or burned to 
death, at least double that number died from ex- 
posure and starvation, and an enormous number 
— I have heard the figure placed as high as 
200,000 — were rendered homeless. The stories 
which I heard of the treatment to which the Al- 
banian women were subjected are so revolting 
as to be unprintable. We spent a night at Ljas- 
kovlki (also spelled Gllascovichi, Leskovik and 
Liascovik), three-quarters of which had been 
destroyed. Out of a population which, I was 
told, originally numbered about 8,000, only 
1,200 remain. 

Though the great majority of the victims 




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H-' O 



C/^ 



S S 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 143 

were Mohammedans, the outrages were not di- 
rectly due to religious causes but were inspired 
mainly by greed for territory. When, upon 
the erection of Albania into an independent 
kingdom in 19 13, the Greeks were ordered by 
the Powers to withdraw from North Epirus, 
on which they had been steadily encroaching 
and which they had come to look upon as in- 
alienably their own, they are reported to have 
begun a systematic series of outrages upon the 
civil population of the region for which a fit- 
ting parallel can be found only in the Turkish 
massacres in Armenia or the horrors of Bolshe- 
vik rule in Russia. In their determination to 
secure Southern Albania for themselves, the 
Greeks apparently adopted the policy followed 
with such success in Armenia by the Turks, 
who asserted cynically that *'one cannot make 
a state without Inhabitants." 

I do not think that the Greeks attempt to 
deny these atrocities — the evidence Is far too 
conclusive for that — ^but even as great a Greek 
as M. Venlzelos justifies them on the ground 
that they were provoked by the Albanians. That 
such things could happen without arousing hor- 
ror and condemnation throughout the civilized 



144 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

world is due to the fact that in the summer of 
1 9 14 the attention of the world was focused on 
events in France and Belgium. I have no quar- 
rel with the Greeks and nothing is further from 
my desire than to engage in what used to be 
known as "muck-raking," but I am reporting 
what I saw and heard in Albania because I be- 
lieve that the American people ought to know of 
it. Taken in conjunction with the behavior of 
the Greek troops in Smyrna in the spring of 
19 1 8, it should better enable us to form an opin- 
ion as to the moral fitness of the Greeks to be 
entrusted with mandates over backward peo- 
ples. 

Though Albania is an Italian protectorate, 
the Albanians, in spite of all that Italy is doing 
toward the development of the country, do not 
want Itahan protection. This is scarcely to be 
wondered at, however, in view of the attitude 
of another untutored people, the Egyptians, 
who, though they owe their amazing prosperity 
solely to British rule, would oust the British at 
the first opportunity which offered. Though 
the Italians are distrusted because the Albani- 
ans question their administrative ability and be- 
cause they fear that they will attempt to de- 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 145 

nationalize them, the French are regarded with 
a hatred which I have seldom seen equaled. 
This is due, I imagine, to the belief that the 
French are allied with their hereditary enemies, 
the Greeks and the Serbs, and to France's iron- 
handed rule, which was exemplified when Gen- 
eral Sarrail, commanding the army of the Ori- 
ent, ordered the execution of the President of 
the short-lived Albanian Republic which was 
established at Korltza. As a matter of fact, 
the Albanians, though quite unfitted for inde- 
pendence, are violently opposed to being placed 
under the protection of any nation, unless it be 
the United States or England, in both of which 
they place implicit trust. I was astonished to 
learn that the few Americans who have pene- 
trated Albania since the war — missionaries. Red 
Cross workers, and one or two investigators 
for the Peace Conference — have encouraged 
the natives in the belief that the United States 
would probably accept a mandate for Albania. 
Whether they did this in order to make them- 
selves popular and thereby facilitate their mis- 
sions, or because of an abysmal ignorance of 
American public sentiment, I do not know, but 
the fact remains that they have raised hopes In 



146 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

the breasts of thousands of Albanians which 
can never be realized. Everything considered, 
I think that the Albanians might do worse than 
to entrust their political future to the guidance 
of the Italians, who, in addition to having 
brought law, order, justice, and the beginnings 
of prosperity to a country which never had so 
much as a bowing acquaintance with any one of 
them before, seem to have the best interests of 
the people genuinely at heart. 

Leaving Koritza, a clean, well-kept town of 
perhaps 10,000 people, which was occupied 
when we were there by a battalion of black 
troops from the French Sudan and some Mo- 
roccans, we went snorting up the Peristeri 
Range by an appallingly steep and narrow road, 
higher, higher, always higher, until, to para- 
phrase Kipling, we had 

"One wheel on the Horns o' the Momin', 

An' one on the edge o' the Pit, 
An' a drop into nothin' beneath us 
As straight as a beggar could spit." 

But at last, when I was beginning to wonder 
whether our wheels could find traction if the 
grade grew much steeper, we topped the sum- 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 147 

mit of the pass and looked down on Macedonia. 
Below us the forested slopes of the mountains 
ran down, like the folds of a great green rug 
lying rumpled on an oaken floor, to meet the 
bare brown plains of that historic land where 
marched and fought the hosts of Philip of Ma- 
cedon, and of Alexander, his son. There are 
few more splendid panoramas in the world; 
there is none over which history has cast so 
magic a spell, for this barren, dusty land has 
been the arena in which the races of eastern Eu- 
rope have battled since history began. Within 
its borders are represented all the peoples who 
are disputing the reversion of the Turkish pos- 
sessions in Europe. Macedonia might be de- 
scribed, indeed, as the very quintessence of the 
near eastern question. 

With brakes a-squeal we slipped down the 
long, steep gradients to Fiorina, where Greek 
gendarmes, in British sun-helmets and khaki, 
lounged at the street-crossings and patroniz- 
ingly waved us past. Thence north by the an- 
cient highway which leads to Monastir, the 
parched and yellow fields on either side still 
littered with the debris of war — broken 
camions and wagons, shattered cannon, pyra- 



148 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

mids of ammunition-cases, vast quantities of 
barbed wire — and sprinkled with white crosses, 
thousands and thousands of them, marking the 
places where sleep the youths from Britain, 
France, Italy, Russia, Serbia, Canada, India, 
Australia, Africa, who fell in the Last Crusade. 
Monastir is a filthy, ill-paved, characteristi- 
cally Turkish town, which, before its decima- 
tion by the war, was credited with having some 
60,000 inhabitants. Of these about one-half 
were Turks and one-quarter Greeks, the re- 
maining quarter of the inhabitants being com- 
posed of Serbs, Jews, Albanians, and Bulgars. 
Those of its buildings which escaped the great 
conflagration which destroyed half the town 
were terribly shattered by the long series of 
bombardments, so that to-day the place looks 
like San Francisco after the earthquake and 
Baltimore after the fire. In the suburbs are 
immense supplies of war materiel of all sorts, 
mostly going to waste. I saw thousands of 
camions, ambulances, caissons, and wagons liter- 
ally falling apart from neglect, and this in a 
country which is almost destitute of transport. 
Though the town was packed with Serbian 
troops, most of whom are sleeping and eating in 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 149 

the open, no attempt was being made, so far as 
I could see, to repair the shell-torn buildings, to 
clean the refuse-littered streets, or to afford the 
inhabitants even the most nominal police protec- 
tion. The crack of rifles and revolvers is as 
frequent In the streets of Monastir as the bang 
of bursting tires on Fifth Avenue. A Serbian 
sentry, on duty outside the house In which I was 
sleeping, suddenly loosed off a cHp of cartridges 
in the street, for no reason in the world, it 
seemed, than because he liked to hear the noise I 
Dead bodies are found nearly every morning. 
Murders are so common that they do not pro- 
voke even passing comment. In the night there 
comes a sharp bark of an automatic or the shat- 
tering roar of a hand-grenade (which, since the 
war proved its efficacy, has become the most 
recherche weapon for private use In these re- 
gions), a clatter of feet, and a "Hello! An- 
other killing." That is all. Life is the cheapest 
thing there Is In the Balkans. 

The only really clean place we found in Mon- 
astir was the American Red Cross Hospital, 
an extremely well-managed and efficient institu- 
tion, which was under the direction of a young 
American woman, Dr. Frances Flood, who, 



150 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

with a single woman companion, Miss Jessup, 
pluckily remained at her post throughout the 
greater part of the war. The officers who dur- 
ing the war achieved rows of ribbons for hav- 
ing acted as messenger boys between the War 
Department and the foreign military missions 
in Washington, would feel a trifle embarrassed, 
I imagine, if they knew what this little Amer- 
ican woman did to win her decorations. 

It is in the neighborhood of one hundred and 
fifty miles from Monastir to Salonika across 
the Macedonian plain and the road Is one of 
the very worst in Europe. Deep ruts, into 
which the car sometimes slipped almost to Its 
hubs, and frequent gullies made driving, save 
at the most moderate speed. Impossible, while, 
as many of the bridges were broken, and with- 
out signs to warn the travelers of their condi- 
tion, we more than once barely saved ourselves 
from plunging through the gaping openings to 
disaster. The vast traffic of the fighting armies 
had ground the roads into yellow dust which 
rose in clouds as dense as a London fog, while 
the waves of heat from the sun-scorched plains 
beat against our faces like the blast from an 
open furnace door. Despite its abominable con- 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 151 

dition, the road was alive with traffic: droves 
of buffalo, black, ungainly, broad-horned beasts, 
their elephant-like hides caked with yellow 
mud; woolly waves of sheep and goats driven 
by wild mountain herdsmen in high fur caps 
and gaudy sashes; caravans of camels, swinging 
superciliously past on padded feet, laden with 
supplies for the interior or salvaged war ma- 
terial for the coast; clumsy carts, painted in 
strange designs and screaming colors, with great 
sharpened stakes which looked as though they 
were intended for purposes of torture, but 
whose real duty is to keep the top-heavy loads 
in place. 

Though the slopes of the Rhodope and the 
Pindus are clothed with splendid forests, it is 
for the most part a flat and treeless land, dotted 
with clusters of filthy hovels made of sun-dried 
brick and with patches of discouraged-looking 
vegetation. As Macedonia (its inhabitants pro- 
nounce it as though the first syllable were mack) 
was once the granary of the East, I had ex- 
pected to see illimitable fields of waving grain, 
but such fields as we did see were generally 
small and poor. Guarding them against the 
hovering swarms of blackbirds were many scare- 



152 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

crows, rigged out in the uniforms and topped 
by the helmets of the men whose bones bleach 
amid the grain. In Switzerland they make a 
very excellent red wine called Schweizerblut, 
because the grapes from which it is made are 
grown on soil reddened by the blood of the 
Swiss who fell on the battlefield of Morat. If 
blood makes fine wine, then the best wine in all 
the world should come from these Macedonian 
plains, for they have been soaked with blood 
since ever time began. 

Our halfway town was Vodena, which 
seemed, after the heat and dust of the journey, 
like an oasis in the desert. Scores of streams, 
issuing from the steep slopes of the encircling 
hills, race through the town in a network of 
little canals and fling themselves from a cliff, in 
a series of superb cascades, into the wooded 
valley below. Philip of Macedon was born 
near Vodena, and there, in accordance with his 
wishes, he was buried. You can see the tomb, 
flanked by ever-burning candles, though you 
may not enter it, should you happen to pass 
that way. He chose his last resting-place well, 
did the great soldier, for the overarching 
boughs of ancient plane-trees turn the cobbled 



CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 153 

streets of the little town into leafy naves, the 
air is heavy with the scent of orange and olean- 
der, and the place murmurs with the pleasant 
sound of plashing water. 

Beyond Vodena the road improved for a 
time and we fled southward at greater speed, 
the telegraph poles leaping at us out of the yel- 
low dust-haze like the pikes of giant sentinels. 
At Alexander's Well, an ancient cistern built 
from marble blocks and filled with crystal-clear 
water, we paused to refill our boiling radiator, 
and paused again, a few miles farther on, at 
the wretched, mud-walled village which, accord- 
ing to local tradition, is the birthplace of the 
man who made himself master of three con- 
tinents, changed the face of the world, and died 
at thirty-three. 

Then south again, south again, across the 
seemingly illimitable plains, until, topping a 
range of bare brown hills, there lay spread be- 
fore us the gleaming walls and minarets of that 
city where Paul preached to the Thessalonlans. 
To the westward Olympus seemed to verify the 
assertions of the ancient Greeks that Its sum- 
mit touched the sky. To the east, outlined 
against the iEgean's blue, I could see the penin- 



154 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

sula of Chalkis, with Its three gaunt capes, Cas- 
sandra, Longos, and Athos, reaching toward 
Thrace, the Hellespont and Asia Minor, like 
the claw of a vulture stretched out to snatch the 
quarry which the eagles killed. 



CHAPTER IV 

UNDER THE CROSS AND THE 
CRESCENT 

SALONIKA is superbly situated. To gain 
It from the seaward side you sail through 
a portal formed by the majestic peaks of Athos 
and Olympus. It reclines on the bronze-brown 
Macedonian hills, white-clad, like a young 
Greek goddess, with Its feet laved by the blue 
waters of the iEgean. (I have used this simile 
elsewhere In the book, but It does not matter.) 
The scores of slender minarets which rise above 
the housetops belle the crosses on the Greek 
flags which flaunt everywhere, hinting that the 
city, though It has passed under Christian rule, 
is at heart still Moslem. Indeed, barely a tenth 
of the 200,000 Inhabitants are of the ruling 
race, for Salonika is that rare thing In modern 
Europe, a city whose population Is by majority 
Jewish. There were hook-nosed, dark-skinned 

155 



156 NEW "FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

traders from Judea here, no doubt, as far back 
as the days when Salonika was but a way-station 
on the great highroad which Hnked the East 
with Rome, but it was the Jews expelled from 
Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella who trans- 
formed the straggling Turkish town into one of 
the most prosperous cities of the Levant by 
making it their home. And to-day the Jewish 
women of Salonika, the older ones at least, 
wear precisely the same costume that their 
great-grandmother wore in Spain before the 
persecution — a symbol and a reminder of how 
the Israelites were hunted by the Christians be- 
fore they found refuge in a Moslem land. 

There are no less than eight distinct ways of 
spelling and pronouncing the city's name. To 
the Greeks, who are Its present owners, it Is 
Saloniki or Saloneke, according to the method 
of transliterating the epsilon; It is known to 
the Turks, who misruled It for five hundred 
years, as Selanik; the British call it Salonica, 
with the accent on the second syllable; the 
French Salonique; the Italians Salonnico, while 
the Serbs refer to It as Solun. The best au- 
thorities seem to have agreed, however, on Salo- 
nika, with the accent on the "I," which Is pro- 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 157 

nounced like *'e," so that it rhymes with "pa- 
prika." But these are all corruptions and ab- 
breviations, for the city was originally named 
Thessalonica, after the sister of Alexander 6f 
Macedon, and thus referred to in the two epis- 
tles which St. Paul addressed to the church he 
founded there. Owing to the variety of its 
religious sects, Salonika has a superfluity of 
Sabbaths as well as of names, Friday being ob- 
served by the Moslems, Saturday by the Jews, 
and Sunday by the Christians. Perhaps it would 
be putting it more accurately to say that there 
is no Sabbath at all, for the inhabitants are so 
eager to make money that business is transacted 
on every day of the seven. 

Besides the great colony of Orthodox Jews 
in Salonika, there is a sect of renegades known 
as Dounme, or Deunmeh, who number perhaps 
20,000 in all. These had their beginnings in 
the Annus Mirabilis, when a Jewish Messiah, 
Sabatai Sevi of Smyrna, arose in the Levant. 
He preached a creed which was a first cousin of 
those believed in by our own Anabaptists and 
Seventh Day Adventists. The name and the 
fame of him spread across the Near East like 
fire in dry grass. Every ghetto in Turkey had 



158 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

accepted him; his ritual was adopted by every 
synagogue; the Jews gave themselves over to 
penance and preparation. For a year honesty 
reigned in the Levant. Then the prophet set 
out for Constantinople to beard the Sultan in 
his palace and, so he announced, to lead him in 
chains to Zion. That was where Sabatai Sevi 
made his big mistake. For the Commander of 
the Faithful was from Missouri, so far as Sa- 
batai Sevi's claims to divinity were concerned. 

"Messiahs can perform miracles," the Sul- 
tain said. "Let me see you perform one. My 
Janissaries shall make a target of you. If you 
are of divine origin, as you claim, the arrows 
will not harm you. And, in any event, it will 
be an interesting experiment." 

Now Sabatai evidently had grave doubts 
about his self-assumed divinity being arrow- 
proof, for he protested vigorously against the 
proposal to make a human pin-cushion of him, 
whereupon the Sultan, his suspicions now con- 
firmed, gave him his choice between being im- 
paled upon a stake, a popular Turkish pastime 
of the period, or of renouncing Judaism and 
accepting the faith of Islam. Preferring to be 
a live coward to an impaled martyr, he chose 




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UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 159 

the latter, yet such was his influence with the 
Jews that thousands of his adherents voluntarily 
embraced the religion of Mohammed. The 
Dounme of Salonika are the descendants of 
these renegades. Two centuries of waiting 
have not dimmed their faith in the eventual 
coming of their Messiah. So there they wait, 
equally distrusted by Jews and Moslems, 
though they form the wealthiest portion of the 
city's population. But they live apart and so 
dread any mixing of their blood with that of 
the Infidel Turk or the unbelieving Jew that, In 
order to avoid the risk of an unwelcome pro- 
posal, they make a practise of betrothing their 
children before they are born. It strikes me, 
however, that there must on occasion be a cer- 
tain amount of embarrasment connected with 
these early matches, as, for example, when the 
prenatally engaged ones prove to be of the 
same sex. 

I used to be of the opinion that Tiflls, in the 
Caucasus, was the most cosmopolitan city that 
I had ever seen, but since the war I think that 
the greatest variety of races could probably be 
found In Salonika. Sit at a marble-topped table 
on the pavement In front of Floca's cafe at the 



i6o NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

tea-hour and you can see representatives of half 
the races in the world pass by — British officers 
in beautifully polished boots and beautifully cut 
breeches, astride of beautifully groomed ponies; 
Highlanders with their kilts covered by khaki 
aprons ; raw-boned, red-faced Australians in sun 
helmets and shorts; swaggering chausseurs 
d! Afr'ique in wonderful uniforms of sky-blue 
and scarlet which you will find nowhere else 
outside a musical comedy; soldiers of the For- 
eign Legion with the skirts of their long blue 
overcoats pinned back and with mushroom- 
shaped helmets which are much too large for 
them; soldierly, well set-up little Ghurkas in 
broad-brimmed hats and uniforms of olive 
green, reminding one for all the world of fight- 
ing cocks; Sikhs in yellow khaki (did you know, 
by the way, that khaki is the Hindustani word 
for dust?) with their long black beards neatly 
plaited and rolled up under their chins; Epi- 
rotes wearing the starched and plaited skirts 
called fustanellas, each of which requires from 
twenty to forty yards of linen; Albanian tribal 
chiefs in jackets stiff with gold embroidery, with 
enough weapons thrust in their gaudy sashes to 
decorate a club-room; Cretan gendarmes wear- 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT i6i 

ing breeches which are so tight below the knee 
and so enormously baggy in the seat that they 
can, and when they are in Crete frequently do, 
use them in place of a basket for carrying their 
poultry, eggs or other farm produce to mar- 
ket; coal-black Senegalese, coffee-colored Mo- 
roccans and tan-colored Algerians, all wearing 
the broad red cummerbunds and the high red 
tarbooshes which distinguish France's African 
soldiery; Italian hersaglieri with great bunches 
of cocks' feathers hiding their steel helmets; 
Serbs in ununiform uniforms of every conceiva- 
ble color, material and pattern, their only uni- 
form article of equipment being their charac- 
teristic high-crowned kepis; Russians in flat caps 
and belted blouses, their baggy trousers tucked 
into boots with ankles like accordions; officers 
of Cossack cavalry, their tall and slender figures 
accentuated by their long, tight-fitting coats and 
their high caps of lambskin; Bulgar prisoners 
wearing the red-banked caps which they have 
borrowed from their German allies and Aus- 
trian prisoners in worn and shabby uniforms 
of grayish-blue; Greek soldiers bedecked like 
Christmas trees with medals, badges, fourra- 
geres and chevrons, in the hope, I suppose, that 



i62 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

their gaudiness would make up for their lack 
of prowess; Orthodox priests with their long 
hair (for they never cut their hair or beards) 
done up in Psyche knots; Hebrew rabbis wear- 
ing caps of velvet shaped like those worn by 
bakers; Moslem muftis with their snowy tur- 
bans encircled by green scarves as a sign that 
they had made the pilgrimage to the Holy 
Places; Jewish merchants and money-changers 
in the same black caps and greasy gabardines 
which their ancestors wore in the Middle Ages ; 
British, French, Italian and American bluejack- 
ets with their caps cocked jauntily and the roll 
of the sea in their gait; A.RA., A.R.C., 
Y.M.C.A., K. of C. and A.C.R.N.E. workers in 
fancy uniforms of every cut and color ; Turkish 
sherbet-sellers with huge brass urns, hung with 
tinkling bells to give notice of their approach, 
slung upon their backs; ragged Macedonian 
bootblacks (bootblacking appeared to be the 
national industry of Macedonia), and hordes 
of gipsy beggars, the filthiest and most impor- 
tunate I have ever seen. All day long this mot- 
ley, colorful crowd surges through the narrow 
streets, their voices, speaking in a score of 
tongues, raising a din like that of Bedlam; the 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 163 

smells of unwashed bodies, human perspiration, 
strong tobacco, rum, hashish, whiskey, arrack, 
goat's cheese, garlic, cheap perfumery and 
sweat-soaked leather combining in a stench 
which rises to high Heaven. 

On the streets one sees almost as many col- 
ored soldiers as white ones: French native 
troops from Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar, 
Senegal and China; British Indian soldiery from 
Bengal, the Northwest Provinces and Nepaul. 
The Indian troops were superbly drilled and 
under the most iron discipline, but the French 
native troops appeared to be getting out of 
hand and were not to be depended upon. To 
a man they had announced that they wanted to 
go home. They had been through four and a 
half years of war, they are tired and homesick, 
and they are more than willing to let the Bal- 
kan peoples settle their own quarrels. They 
were weary of fighting in a quarrel of which 
they knew little and about which they cared 
less; they longed for a sight of the wives and 
the children they had left beliind them in Fez 
or Touggourt or Timbuktu. Because they had 
been kept on duty in Europe, while the French 
white troops were being rapidly demobilized 



i64 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

and returned to their homes, the Africans were 
sullen and resentful. This smoldering resent- 
ment suddenly burst into flame, a day or so be- 
fore we reached Salonika, when a Senegalese 
sergeant, whose request to be sent home had 
been refused, ran amuck, barricaded himself in 
a stone outhouse with a plentiful supply of rifles 
and ammunition, and succeeded in killing four 
officers and half-a-dozen soldiers before his 
career was ended by a well-aimed hand grenade. 
A few days later a British oflficer was shot and 
killed in the camp outside the city by a Ghurka 
sentinel. This was not due to mutiny, how- 
ever, but, on the contrary, to over-strict obedi- 
ence to orders, the sentry having been instruct- 
ed that he was to permit no one to cross his 
post without challenging. The oflSicer, who was 
fresh from England and had had no experience 
with the discipline of Indian troops, ignored 
the order to halt — and the next day there was 
a military funeral. 

Salonika is theoretically under Greek rule 
and there are pompous, self-important little 
Greek policemen, perfect replicas of the Brit- 
ish M.P.'s In everything save physique and dis- 
cipline, on duty at the street crossings, but in- 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 165 

stead of regulating the enormous flow of traffic 
they seem only to obstruct it. When the con- 
gestion becomes so great that it threatens to 
hold up the unending stream of motor-lorries 
which rolls through the city, day and night, be- 
tween the great cantonments in the outskirts 
and the port, a tall British military policeman 
suddenly appears from nowhere, shoulders the 
Greek gendarme aside, and with a few curt or- 
ders untangles the snarl into which the traffic 
has gotten itself and sets it going again. 

Picturesque though Salonika undeniably is, 
with its splendid mosques, its beautiful Byzan- 
tine churches, its Roman triumphal arches, and 
the brooding bulk of Mount Olympus, which 
overshadows and makes trivial everything 
else, yet the strongest impressions one 
carries away are filth, corruption and mis- 
government. These conditions are due in 
some measure, no doubt, to the refusal 
of the European troops, with whom the 
city is filled, to take orders from any save their 
own officers, but the underlying reason is to be 
found in the indifference and gross incompe- 
tence of the Greek authorities. The Greeks an- 
swer this by saying that they have not had time 



1 66 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

to clean the city up and. give It a decent admin- 
istration because they have owned it only eight 
years. All of the European business quarter, 
including a mile of handsome buildings along 
the waterfront, lies In ruins as a resujt of the 
great fire of 19 17. Though a system of new 
streets has been tentatively laid out across this 
fire-swept area, no attempt has been made to 
rebuild the city, hundreds of shopkeepers carry- 
ing on their businesses in shacks and booths 
erected amid the blackened and tottering walls. 
All of the hotels worthy of the name were de- 
stroyed in the fire, the two or three which es- 
caped being quite uninhabitable, at least for 
Europeans, because of the armies of insects 
with which they are infested. I do not recall 
hearing any one say a good word for Salonika. 
The pleasantest recollection which I retain of 
the place is that of the steamer which took us 
away from there. 

Before we could leave Salonika for Constan- 
tinople our passports had to be vised by the 
representatives of {ive nations. In fact, travel 
in the Balkans since the war is just one damn 
vise after another. The Italians stamped them 
because we had come from Albania, which is 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 167 

under Italian protection. The Serbs put on 
their Imprint because we had stopped for a 
few days In Monastlr. The Greeks affixed their 
stamp — and collected handsomely for doing so 
— because, theoretically at least, Salonika, 
whose dust we were shaking from our feet, be- 
longs to them. The French insisted on vlseing 
our papers In order to show their authority and 
because they needed the ten francs. The Brit- 
ish control officer told me that I really didn't 
need his vise, but that he would put It on any- 
way because It would make the passports look 
more imposing. Because we were going to Con- 
stantinople and Bucharest, whereas our pass^ 
ports were made out for *'the Balkan States," 
the American Consul would not vise them at 
all, on the ground that neither Turkey nor Rou- 
manla Is in the Balkans. About Roumania 
he was technically correct, but I think most 
geographers place European Turkey in the Bal- 
kans. As things turned out, however, It was 
all labor lost and time thrown away, for we 
landed In Constantinople as untroubled by of- 
ficials and Inspectors as though we were step- 
ping ashore at Twenty-third Street from a Jer- 
sey City ferry. 



i68 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

There were no regular sailings from Salonika 
for Constantinople, but, by paying a hundred 
dollars for a ticket which in pre-war days cost 
twenty, we succeeded in obtaining passage on 
an Italian tramp steamer. The Padova was 
just such a cargo tub as one might expect to 
find plying between Levantine ports. Though 
we occupied an officer's cabin, for which we 
were charged Mauretania rates, it was very far 
from being as luxurious as it sounds, for I slept 
upon a mattress laid upon three chairs and the 
mattress was soiled and inhabited. Still, it was 
very diverting, after an itching night, to watch 
the cockroaches, which were almost as large as 
mice, hurrying about their duties on the floor 
and ceiling. Huddled under the forward awn- 
ings were two-score deck passengers — Greeks, 
Turks, Armenians and Roumanians. Sprawled 
on their straw-filled mattresses, they loafed the 
hot and lazy days away in playing cards, eating 
the black bread, olives and garlic which they 
had brought with them, smoking a peculiarly 
strong and villainous tobacco, and torturing na- 
tive musical instruments of various kinds. At 
night a young Turk sang plaintive, quavering 
laments to the accompaniment of a sort of gui- 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 169 

tar, some of the others occasionally joining in 
the mournful chorus. I found my chief recrea- 
tion, when it grew too dark to read. In watching 
an Orthodox priest, who was one of the deck- 
passengers, prepare for the night by combing 
and putting up his long and greasy hair. An- 
other of the deck-passengers was a rather pros- 
perous-looking, middle-aged Levantine who had 
been in America making his fortune, he told me, 
and was now returning to his wife, who lived 
in a little village on the Dardanelles, after an 
absence of sixteen years. She had no idea that 
he was coming, he said, as he had planned to 
surprise her. Perhaps he was the one to be 
surprised. Sixteen years is a long time for a 
woman to wait for a man, even in a country as 
conservative as Turkey. 

The officers of the Padova talked a good 
deal about the mine-fields that still guarded the 
approaches to the Dardanelles and the possi- 
bility that some of the deadly contrivances might 
have broken loose and drifted across our course. 
In order to cheer us up the captain showed us 
the charts, on which the mined areas were indi- 
cated by diagonal shadings, little red arrows 
pointing the way between them along channels 



170 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

as narrow and devious as a forest trail. To 
add to our sense of security he told us that he 
had never been through the Dardanelles be- 
fore, adding that he did not intend to pick up 
a pilot, as he considered their charges exorbi- 
tant. At the base of the great mine-field which 
lies across the mouth of the Straits we were 
hailed by a British patrol boat, whose choleric 
commander bellowed instructions at us, inter- 
larded with much profanity, through a mega- 
phone. The captain of the Padova could un- 
derstand a few simple English phrases, if slow- 
ly spoken, but the broadside of Billingsgate only 
confused and puzzled him, so, despite the fact 
that he had no pilot and that darkness was rap- 
idly descending, he kept serenely on his course. 
This seemed to enrage the British skipper, who 
threw over his wheel and ran directly across 
our bows, very much as one polo player tries 
to ride off another. 

"You fool!" he bellowed, fairly danc- 
ing about his quarter-deck with rage. "Why 
in hell don't you stop when I tell you to? Don't 
you know that you're running straight into a 
mine-field? Drop anchor alongside me and do 
it quick or I'll take your license away 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 171 

from you. And I don't want any of your 

excuses, either. I won't listen to 'em." 

"What he say?" the captain asked me. "I 
not onderstan' hees Engleesh ver' good." 

"No, you wouldn't," I told him. "He's 
speaking a sort of patois, you see. He wants 
to know If you will have the great kindness to 
drop anchor alongside him until morning, for 
it Is forbidden to pass through the mine-fields 
in the dark, and he hopes that you will have a 
very pleasant night." 

Five minutes later our anchor had rumbled 
down off Sed-ul-Bahr, under the shadow of 
Cape Helles, the tip of that rock, sun-scorched, 
blood-soaked peninsula which was the scene of 
that most heroic of military failures — the Galll- 
poll campaign. Above us, on the bare brown 
hillside, was what looked. In the rapidly deep- 
ening twilight, like a patch of driven snow, but 
upon examining It through my glasses I saw 
that It was a field enclosed by a rude wall and 
planted thickly with small white wooden crosses, 
standing row on row. Then I remembered. It 
was at the foot of these steep and steel-swept 
bluffs that the Anzacs made their Immortal land- 



172 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

ing; it Is here, In earth soaked with their own 
blood, that they lie sleeping. The crowded dug- 
outs in which they dwelt have already fallen 
In; the trenches which they dug and which they 
held to the death have crumbled into furrows ; 
their bones lie among the rocks and bushes at 
the foot of that dark and ominous hill on whose 
slopes they made their supreme sacrifice. Lean- 
ing on the rail of the deserted bridge in the 
darkness and the silence It seemed as though I 
could see their ghosts standing amid the crosses 
on the hillside staring longingly across the world 
toward that sun-baked Karroo of Australia and 
to the blue New Zealand mountains which they 
called ''Home." It was a night never to be 
forgotten, for the glassy surface of the i^gean 
glowed with phosphorescence, the sky was like 
a hanging of purple velvet, and the peak of our 
foremast seemed almost to graze the stars. 
Across the Hellespont, to the southward, the 
sky was Illumined by a ruddy glow — a village 
burning, so a sailor told me, on the site of an- 
cient Troy. And then there came back to me 
those lines from Agamemnon which I had 
learned as a boy: 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 173 

^^ Beside the ruins of Troy they lie buried, 
those men so beautiful; there they have their 
burial-place, hidden in an enemy's land!'' 

We got under way at daybreak and, pick- 
ing our way as cautiously as a small boy who 
is trying to get out of the house at night with- 
out awakening his family, we crept warily 
through the vast mine-field which was laid 
across the entrance to the Dardanelles, past 
Sed-ul-Bahr, whose sandy beach is littered with 
the rusting skeletons of both Allied and Turk- 
ish warships and transports; past Kalid Bahr, 
where the high bluffs are dotted with the ruins 
of Turkish forts destroyed by the shell-fire of 
the British dreadnaughts on the other side of 
the peninsula and with the remains of other 
forts which were destroyed in the Crusaders' 
times; past Chanak, where the steep hill-slopes 
behind the town were white with British tents, 
and so into the safe waters of the Marmora 
Sea. Though I was perfectly familiar with the 
topography of the Gallipoli Peninsula, as well 
as with the possibilities of modern naval guns, 
I was astonished at the evidences, which we 
saw along the shore for miles, of the extraordi- 



174 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

nary accuracy of the fire of the British fleet. 
Virtually all the forts defending the Darda- 
nelles were bombarded by indirect fire, remem- 
ber, the whole width of the peninsula separat- 
ing them from the fleet. To get a mental pic- 
ture of the situation you must imagine warships 
lying in the East River firing over Manhattan 
Island in an attempt to reduce fortifications on 
the Hudson. Men who were in the Gallipoli 
forts during the bombardment told me that, 
though they were prevented by the rocky ridge 
which forms the spine of the peninsula from 
seeing the British warships, and though, for the 
same reason, the gunners on the ships could not 
see the forts, the great steel calling-cards of the 
British Empire came falling out of nowhere as 
regularly and with as deadly precision as though 
they were being fired at point-blank range. 

The successful defense of the Dardanelles, 
one of the most brilliantly conducted defensive 
operations of the entire war, was primarily due 
to the courage and stubborn endurance of Tur- 
key's Anatolian soldiery, ignorant, stolid, hardy, 
fearless peasants, who were taken straight from 
their farms in Asia Minor, put into wretchedly 
made, ill-fitting uniforms, hastily trained by 



UNDER CROSS AND CRESCENT 175 

German drillmasters, set down In the trenches 
on the Galllpoli ridge and told to hold them. 
No one who is familiar with the conditions un- 
der which these Turkish soldiers fought, who 
knows how wretched were the conditions under 
which they lived, who has seen those waterless, 
sun-seared ridges which they held against the 
might of Britain's navy and the best troops 
which the Allies could bring against them, can 
withhold from them his admiration. Their 
valor was deserving of a better cause. 



CHAPTER V 

WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE 
RECOVER? 

EACH time that I have approached Con- 
' stantinople from the Marmora Sea and 
have watched that glorious and fascinating 
panorama — Seraglio Point, St. Sophia, Stam- 
boul, the Golden Horn, the Galata Bridge, the 
heights of Pera, Dolmabagtche, Yildiz — slowly 
unfold, revealing new beauties, new mysteries, 
with each revolution of the steamer's screw, I 
have declared that in all the world there is no 
city so lovely as this capital of the Caliphs. Yet, 
beautiful though Constantinople is, it combines 
the moral squalor of Southern Europe with the 
physical squalor of the Orient to a greater de- 
gree than any city in the Levant. Though it 
has assumed the outward appearance of a well- 
organized and fairly well administered munici- 
pality since its occupation by the Allies, one has 

176 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 177 

but to scratch this thin veneer to discover that 
the filth and vice and corruption and misgovern- 
ment which characterized it under Ottoman rule 
still remain. Barring a few municipal improve- 
ments which were made in the European quar- 
ter of Pera and in the fashionable residential 
districts between Dolmabagtche and Yildiz, the 
Turkish capital has scarcely a bowing acquain- 
tance with modern sanitation, the windows of 
some of the finest residences in Stamboul look- 
ing out on open sewers down which refuse of 
every description floats slowly to the sea or 
takes lodgment on the banks, these masses of 
decaying matter attracting great swarms of 
pestilence-breeding flies. The streets are 
thronged with women whose virtue is as easy 
as an old shoe, attracted by the presence of the 
armies as vultures are attracted by the smell of 
carrion. Saloons, brothels, dives and gambling 
hells run wide open and virtually unrestricted, 
and as a consequence venereal diseases abound, 
though the British military authorities, in order 
to protect their own men, have put the more 
notorious resorts "out of bounds" and, in order 
to provide more wholesome recreations for the 
troops, have opened amusement parks called 



178 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

"military gardens." In spite of the British, 
French, Italian and Turkish military police who 
are on duty in the streets, stabbing affrays, 
shootings and robberies are so common that 
they provoke but little comment. Petty thiev- 
ery is universal. Hats, coats, canes, umbrellas 
disappear from beside one's chair in hotels and 
restaurants. The Pera Palace Hotel has notices 
posted in its corridors warning the guests that 
it is no longer safe to place their shoes outside 
their doors to be polished. The streets, always 
wretchedly paved, have been ground to pieces 
by the unending procession of motor-lorries, 
and, as they are never by any chance repaired, 
the first rain transforms them into a series of 
hog-wallows. The most populous districts of 
Pera, of Galata, and of Stamboul are now dis- 
figured by great areas of fire-blackened ruins — 
reminders of the several terrible conflagrations 
from which the Turkish capital has suffered in 
recent years. "Should the United States decide 
to accept the mandate for Constantinople," a 
resident remarked to me, ''these burned dis- 
tricts would give her an opportunity to start 
rebuilding the city on modern sanitary lines" 
and, he might have added, at American expense. 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 179 

The prices of necessities are fantastic and 
of luxuries fabulous. The cost of everything 
has advanced from 200 to 1,200 per cent. The 
price of a meal Is no longer reckoned in piastres 
but in Turkish pounds, though this is not as 
startling as it sounds, for the Turkish lira has 
dropped to about a quarter of its normal value. 
Quite a modest dinner for two at such places 
as Tokatllan's, the Pera Palace Hotel, or the 
Pera Gardens, costs the equivalent of from 
fifteen to twenty dollars. Everything else is in 
proportion. From the "Little Club' in Pera to 
the Galata Bridge is about a seven minutes' 
drive by carriage. Irtthe old days the standard 
tariff for the trip was twenty-five cents. Now 
the cabmen refuse to turn a wlieel for less than 
two dollars. 

Speaking of money, the chief occupation of 
the traveler in the Balkans is exchanging the 
currency of one country for that of another: 
lira Into dinars, dinars into drachmae, drachmae 
Into piastres, piastres Into leva, leva Into lei, 
lei Into roubles (though no one ever exchanges 
his money for roubles if he can possibly help 
it), roubles into kronen, and kronen Into Hre 
again. The Idea is to leave each country with 



i8o NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

as little as possible of that country's currency 
in your possession. It is like playing that card 
game in which you are penalized for every heart 
you have left in your hand. 

"But how is the Sick Man?" I hear you ask. 

He is doing very nicely, thank you. In fact, 
he appears to be steadily improving. There 
was a time, shortly after the Armistice, when 
it seemed certain that he would have to submit 
to an operation, which he probably would not 
have survived, but the surgeons disagreed as 
to the method of operating and now it 
looks as though he would get well in spite of 
them. He has a chill every time they hold a 
consultation, of course, but he will probably es- 
cape the operation altogether, though he may 
have to take some extremely unpleasant medi- 
cine and be kept on a diet for several years to 
come. He has remarkable recuperative powers, 
you know, and his friends expect to see him up 
and about before long. 

That may sound flippant, as it is, but it sums 
up in a single paragraph the extraordinary po- 
litical situation which exists in Turkey to-day. 
Little more than a year ago Turkey surrendered 
in defeat, her resources exhausted, her armies 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? i8i 

destroyed or scattered. If anything in the world 
seemed certain at that time it was that the red- 
handed nation, whose very name has for cen- 
turies been a synonym for cruelty and oppres- 
sion, would disappear from the map of Europe, 
if not from the map of the world, at the behest 
of an outraged civilization. The Turkish Gov- 
ernment committed the most outrageous crime 
of the entire war when it organized the sys- 
tematic extermination of the Armenians. Its 
former Minister of War, Enver Pasha, has 
been quoted as cynically remarking, "If there 
are no more Armenians there can be no 
Armenian question." A people capable of 
such barbarity ought no longer be per- 
mitted to sully Europe with their pres- 
ence: they ought to be driven back into 
those savage Anatolian regions whence they 
came and kept there, just as those suffering 
from a less objectionable form of leprosy are 
confined on Molokai. But the fervor of a year 
ago for expelling the Turks from Europe is 
rapidly dying down. In the spring of 19 19 
Turkey could have been partitioned by the Al- 
lies with comparatively little friction. No one 
expected it more than Turkey herself. When- 



1 82 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

ever she heard a step on the floor, a knock at 
the door, she keyed herself for the ordeal of 
the anesthetic and the operating table. But 
the ancient jealousies and rivalries of the En- 
tente nations, which had been forgotten during 
the war, returned with peace and now it looks 
as though, as a result of these nations' distrust 
and suspicion of each other, the Turks would 
win back by diplomacy what they lost in bat- 
tle. How History repeats itself! The Turks 
have often been unlucky in war and then had a 
return of luck at the peace table. It was so 
after the Russo-Turkish War, when the Con- 
gress of Berlin tore up the Treaty of San Ste- 
fano. It was so to a lesser extent after the 
Balkan wars, when the interference of the Eu- 
ropean Concert enabled Turkey to recover Ad- 
rianople and a portion of the Thracian terri- 
tory which she had lost to Bulgaria. And now 
it looks as though she were once again to es- 
cape the punishment she so richly merits. If 
she does, then History will chronicle few more 
shameful miscarriages of justice. 

If the people of the United States could 
know for a surety of the avarice, the selfish- 
ness, the cynicism which have marked every 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 183 

step of the negotiations relative to the settle- 
ment of the Near Eastern Question, if they 
were aware of the chicanery and the deceit and 
the low cunning practised by the European 
diplomatists, I am convinced that there would 
be an Irresistible demand that we withdraw in- 
stantly from participation In the affairs of 
Southeastern Europe and of Western Asia. 
Why not look the facts in the face? Why 
not admit that these affairs are, after all, none 
of our concern, and that, by every one save the 
Turks and the Armenians, our attempted dicta- 
tion Is resented. In the language of the fron- 
tier, we have butted Into a game In which we 
are not wanted. It is no game for up-lifters 
or amateurs. England, France, Italy and Greece 
are not in this game to bring order out of chaos 
but to establish "spheres of influence." They 
are not thinking about self-determination and 
the rights of little peoples and making the world 
safe for Democracy; they are thinking In terms 
of future commercial and territorial advan- 
tage. They are playing for the richest stakes 
In the history of the world: for the control of 
the Bosphorus and the Bagdad Railway — for 
whoever controls them controls the trade routes 



1 84 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

to India, Persia, and the vast, untouched re- 
gions of Transcaspia; the commercial domina- 
tion of Western Asia, and the overlordship of 
that city which stands at the crossroads of the 
Eastern World and its political capital of Is- 
lam. 

In order better to appreciate the subtleties 
of the game which they are playing, let us 
glance over the shoulders of the players and 
get a glimpse of their hands. Take England 
to begin with. Unless I am greatly mistaken, 
England is not in favor of a complete dismem- 
berment of Turkey or the expulsion of the Sul- 
tan from Constantinople. This is a complete 
volte face from the sentiment in England im- 
mediately after the war, but during the interim 
she has heard in no uncertain terms from her 
100,000,000 Mohammedan subjects in India, 
who look on the Turkish Sultan as the head of 
their religion and who would resent his humili- 
ation as deeply, and probably much more vio- 
lently, than the Roman Catholics would resent 
the humiliation of the Pope. British rule in 
India, as those who are in touch with Oriental 
affairs know, is none too stable, and the last 
thing in the world England wants to do is to 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 185 

arouse the hostility of her Moslem subjects by 
affronting the head of their faith. England 
will unquestionably retain control of Mesopota- 
mia for the sake of the oil wells at the head 
of the Persian Gulf, the control which It gives 
her of the eastern section of the Bagdad Rail- 
way, and because of her belief that scientific 
Irrigation will once more transform the plains 
of Babylonia Into one of the greatest wheat-pro- 
ducing regions In the world. She may, and prob- 
ably will, keep her oft-repeated promises to the 
Jews by erecting Palestine into a Hebrew king- 
dom under British protection. If for no other 
reason than its value as a buffer state to protect 
Egypt. She will also, I assume, continue to 
foster and support the policy of Pan-Arabism, 
as expressed In the new Kingdom of the Hed- 
jaz, not alone for the reason that control of 
the Arabian peninsula gives her complete com- 
mand of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf as 
well as a highroad from Egypt to her new pro- 
tectorate of Persia, but because she hopes, I Im- 
agine, that her protege, the King of Hedjaz, 
as Sheriff of Mecca, will eventually supplant 
the Sultan as the religious head of Islam. (It 
is Interesting to note, in passing, that, as a re- 



1 86 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

suit of the protectorates which she has pro* 
claimed over Mesopotamia, Palestine, Arabia 
and Persia, England has, as a direct result of 
the war, obtained control of new territories m 
Asia alone having an area greater than that of 
all the states east of the Mississippi put to- 
gether, with a population of some 20,000,000.) 
Though England would unquestionably wel- 
come the United States accepting a mandate for 
Constantinople, which would ensure the neu- 
trality of the Bosphorus, and for Armenia, 
which, under American protection, would form 
a stabilized buffer state on Mesopotamia's 
northern border, I am convinced that, even if 
the United States refuses such mandates, the 
British Government will oppose the serious hu- 
milation of the Sultan-Khalif, or the complete 
dismemberment of his dominions. 

The latest French plan is to establish an in- 
dependent Turkey from Adrianople to the 
Taurus Mountains, lopping off Syria, which 
will become a French protectorate, and Meso- 
potamia and Palestine, which will remain under 
British control. 

Constantinople, according to the French view, 
must remain independent, though doubtless the 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER?' 187 

freedom of the Straits would be assured by 
some form of international control. France Is 
not particularly enthusiastic about the estab- 
lishment of an Independent Armenia, for many 
French politicians believe that the Interests of 
the Armenians can be safeguarded while per- 
mitting them to remain under the nominal 
suzerainty of Turkey, but she will oppose no 
active objections to Armenian Independence. 
But there must be no crusade against the Turk- 
ish Nationalists who are operating In Asia 
Minor and no pretext given for Nationalist 
massacres of Greeks and Armenians. And 
the Sultan must retain the Khallfate and his 
capital In Constantinople, for, according to the 
French view. It Is far better for the Interests 
of France, who has nearly 30,000,000 Moslem 
subjects of her own, to have an Independent 
head of Islam at Constantinople, where he 
would be to a certain extent under French In- 
fluence, than to have a British-controlled one 
at Mecca. The truth of the matter Is that 
France Is desperately anxious to protect her 
financial Interests In Turkey, which are already 
enormous, and she knows perfectly well that 
her commercial and financial ascendency on the 



i88 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Bosphorus will suddenly wane if the Empire 
should be dismembered. That is the real reason 
why she Is cuddling up to the Sick Man. 
Being perfectly aware that neither England nor 
Italy would consent to her becoming the manda- 
tary for Constantinople, she proposes to do the 
next best thing and rule Turkey in the future, 
as in the past, through the medium of her 
financial interests. Sophisticated men who have 
read the remarkable tributes to Turkey which 
have been appearing In the French press, and 
Its palliation of her long list of crimes, have 
been aware that something was afoot, but only 
those who have been on the Inside of recent 
events realize how enormous are the stakes, and 
how shrewd and subtle a game France is play- 
ing. 

Strictly speaking, Italy Is not one of the 
claimants to Constantinople. Not that she does 
not want It, mind you, but because she knows 
that there Is about as much chance of her being 
awarded such a mandate as there Is of her ob- 
taining French Savoy, which she likewise covets. 
Under no conceivable conditions would France 
consent to the Bosphorus passing under Italian 
control; according to French views, Indeed, 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 189 

Italy Is already far too powerful in the Balkans. 
Recognizing the hopelessness of attempting to 
overcome French opposition, Italy has confined 
her claims to the great rich region of Cillcla, 
which roughly corresponds to the Turkish 
vilayet of Adana, a rich and fertile region In 
southern Asia Minor, with a coast line stretch- 
ing from Adana to Alexandretta. Cllicia, I 
might mention parenthetically, Is usually In- 
cluded In the proposed Armenian state, and 
Armenians have anticipated that Alexandretta 
would be their port on the Mediterranean, but, 
while the peacemakers at Paris have been dis- 
cussing the question, Italy has been pouring her 
troops Into this region, having already occupied 
the hinterland as far back as Konla. Italy's 
sole claim to this region Is that she wants It 
and that she Is going to take It while the taking 
Is good. There are. It Is true, a few Italians 
along the coast, there are some Italian banks, 
and considerable Italian money has been In- 
vested In various local projects, but the popula- 
tion Is overwhelmingly Turkish. But, as the 
Italians point out In defending this piece of 
land-grabbing, Article 22 of the Covenant of 
the League of Nations expressly states that the 



190 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

wishes of people not yet civilized need not be 
considered. 

Let us now consider the claims of Greece as 
a reversionary of the Sick Man's estate. Con- 
sidering their attitude during the early part of 
the war (for it is no secret that General Sar- 
rail's operations in Macedonia were seriously 
hampered by his fear that Greece might at- 
tack him in the rear) and the paucity of their 
losses in battle, the Greeks have done reason- 
ably well in the game of territory grabbing. 
Do you realize, I wonder, the full extent of the 
Hellenic claims? Greece asks for (i) the 
southern portion of Albania, known as North 
Epirus; (2) for the whole of Bulgarian 
Thrace, thus completely barring Bulgaria from 
the iEgean; (3) for the whole of European 
Turkey, including the Dardanelles and Con- 
stantinople; (4) for the province of Trebizond, 
on the southern shore of the Black Sea, the 
Greek inhabitants of which attempted to es- 
tablish the so-called Pontus Republic; (5) the 
great seaport of Smyrna, with its 400,000 in- 
habitants, and a considerable portion of the 
hinterland, which she has already occupied; 
(6) the Dodecannessus Islands, of which the 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 191 

largest Is Rhodes, off the western coast of Asia 
Minor, which the Italians occupied during the 
Turco-Italian War and which they have not 
evacuated; (7) the cession of Cyprus by Eng- 
land, which has administered it since 1878. 
Greece's modest demands might be summed 
up in the words of a song which was popular 
in the United States a dozen years ago and 
which might appropriately be adopted by the 
Greeks as their national anthem: 

"All I want is fifty million dollars, 
A champagne fountain flowing at my feet ; 
J. Pierpont Morgan waiting at the table, 
And Sousa's band a-playing while I eat." 

I will be quite candid in saying that I have 
small sympathy for Greece's claims to these 
territories, not because she is not entitled to 
them on the ground of nationality — for there 
Is no denying that. In all of the regions in ques- 
tion, save only Albania and Thrace, Greeks 
form a majority of the Christian inhabitants — 
but because she Is not herself sufficiently ad- 
vanced to be entrusted with authority over 
other races, particularly over Mohammedans. 
The atrocities committed by Greek troops on 
the Moslems of Albania and of Smyrna, to say 



192 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

nothing of the behavior of the Greek bands in 
Macedonia during the Balkan wars, should be 
sufficient proof of her unfitness to govern an 
alien race. I have already spoken in some de- 
tail of the reported Greek outrages in Albania. 
But this was not an Isolated Instance of the 
methods employed In "Hellenlzing" Moslem 
populations. In the spring of 19 19 the Peace 
Conference, hypnotized, apparently, by M. 
Venlzelos, who is one of the ablest diplomats of 
the day, made the mistake of permitting Greek 
forces, unaccompanied by other troops, to land 
at Smyrna. Almost immediately there began 
an indiscriminate slaughter of Turkish officials 
and civilians, in retaliation, so the Greeks as- 
sert, for the massacre of Greeks by Turks in the 
outlying districts. The obvious answer to this is 
that, while the Greeks claim that they are a civ- 
ilized race, they assert that the Turks are not. 
The outcry against the Greeks on this occasion 
was so great that an Inter-allied commission, 
including American representatives, was ap- 
pointed to make a thorough Investigation. This 
commission unanimously found the Greeks 
guilty of the unprovoked massacre of 800 
Turkish men, women and children, who were 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 193 

shot down In cold blood while being marched 
along the Smyrna waterfront, those who were 
not killed instantly being thrown by Greek sol- 
diers into the sea. High handed and out- 
rageous conduct by Greek troops in the towns 
and villages back of Smyrna was also proved. 
I do not require any further testimony as to 
the unwisdom of placing Mohammedans under 
Greek control, but, if I did, I have the evidence 
of Mr. Hamlin, the son of the founder of Rob- 
erts College, who was born In the Levant, who 
speaks both Turkish and Greek, and who was 
sent to Smyrna by the Greek government as an 
investigator and adviser. He told me that the 
Greek attitude toward the Moslems was highly 
provocative and overbearing and that the 
Allies were guilty of criminal negligence when 
they permitted the Greeks to land at Smyrna 
alone. 

Though they know that their dream of re- 
storing Hellenic rule over Byzantium cannot be 
realized, the Greeks are bitterly opposed to the 
United States receiving a mandate for Con- 
stantinople. The extent of Greek hostility to- 
ward the United States is not appreciated In 
America, yet I found traces of it everywhere 



194 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

in the Levant. A widespread Greek propa- 
ganda has laid the responsibility for Greece's 
failure to get the whole of Thrace at the door 
of the United States. To this accusation has 
been added the charge that Americans were 
foremost In creating sentiment against the 
Greek massacres in Smyrna, which, the Greeks 
contend, was merely an unfortunate incident 
and should be overlooked. All sorts of 
extraordinary reasons are advanced for Amer- 
ica's alleged hostility to Greek claims, ranging 
from the charge that our attitude is inspired 
by the missionaries (for the Orthodox Church 
has always opposed the presence of American 
missionaries in Greek lands) to commercial am- 
bition. As one leading Greek paper put it, 
"Alongside of America's greed and schemes 
for commercial expansion since the war, Ger- 
many's imperialism was pure idealism." 

And now a few words as to the attitude of 
Turkey herself, for she has, after all, a certain 
interest in the matter. The Turks are perfectly 
resigned to accepting either America, England 
or France as mandatary, though they would 
much prefer America, provided that European 
Turkey, Anatolia and Armenia are kept to- 




c ^ 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 195 

gether, for they realize that Syria, Meso- 
potamia and Arabia, whose populations are 
overwhelmingly Arab, are lost to them forever. 
What they would most eagerly welcome would 
be an American mandate for European Turkey 
and the whole of Asia Minor, Including Ar- 
menia. This would keep out the Greeks, whom 
they hate, and the Italians, whom they distrust, 
and It would keep intact the most valuable por- 
tion of the Empire and the part for which they 
have the deepest sentimental attachment. Most 
Turks believe that, with America as the manda- 
tary power, the country would not only benefit 
enormously through the railways, roads, har- 
bor works, agricultural projects, sanitary Im- 
provements and financial reforms which would 
be carried out at American expense, as in the 
Philippines, but that, should the Turks behave 
themselves and demonstrate an ability for self- 
government, America would eventually restore 
their complete independence, as she has prom- 
ised to restore that of the Filipinos. But If 
they find that Constantinople and Armenia are 
to be taken away from them, then I imagine 
that they would vigorously oppose any manda- 
tary whatsoever. And they could make a far 



196 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

more effective opposition than is generally be- 
lieved, for, though Constantinople is admittedly 
at the mercy of the Allied fleet in the Bos- 
phorus, the Nationalist are said to have re- 
cruited a force numbering nearly 300,000 men, 
composed of well-trained and moderately well 
equipped veterans of the Gallipoli campaign, 
which Is concentrated in the almost Inaccessible 
regions of Central Anatolia. Moreover, Enver 
Pasha, the former Minister of War and leader 
of the Young Turk party, who, It Is reported, 
has made himself King of Kurdistan, Is said to 
be In command of a considerable force of 
Turks, Kurds and Georgians which he has 
raised for the avowed purpose of ending the 
troublesome Armenian question by exterminat- 
ing what Is left of the Armenians, and by ef- 
fecting a union of the Turks, the Kurds, the 
Mohammedans of the Caucasus, the Persians, 
the Tartars and the Turkomans Into a vast 
Turanian Empire, which would stretch from 
the shores of the Mediterranean to the borders 
of China. Though the realization of such a 
scheme is exceedingly improbable, it Is by no 
means as far-fetched or chimerical as it sounds, 
for Enver Is bold, shrewd, highly intelligent 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 197 

and utterly unscrupulous and to weld the vari- 
ous races of his proposed empire he is utilizing 
an enormously effective agency — the fanatical 
faith of all Moslems in the future of Islam. 
Neither England nor France have any desire 
to stir up this hornet's nest, which would prob- 
ably result in grave disorders among their own 
Moslem subjects and which would almost cer- 
tainly precipitate widespread massacres of the 
Christians in Asia Minor, for the sake of dis- 
membering Turkey and ousting the Sultan. 

I have tried to make it clear that there Is 
nothing which the Turks so urgently desire as 
for the United States to take a mandate for the 
whole of Turkey. Those who are in touch 
with public opinion in this country realize, of 
course, that the people of the United States 
would never approve of, and that Congress 
would never give its assent to such an adven- 
ture, yet there are a considerable number of 
well-informed, able and conscientious men — 
former Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and 
President Henry King of Oberlin, for example 
— who give it their enthusiastic support. And 
they are backed up by a host of missionaries, 
commercial representatives, concessionaires and 



198 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

special commissioners of one sort and another. 
When I was in Constantinople the European 
colony in that city was watching with interest 
and amusement the maneuvers of the Turks to 
bring the American officials around to accept- 
ing this view of the matter. They "rushed" 
the rear admiral who was acting as American 
High Commissioner and his wife as the mem- 
bers of a college fraternity "rush" a desirable 
freshman. And, come to think of it, most of 
the American officials who were sent out to 
Investigate and report on conditions in Turkey 
are freshmen when it comes to the complexities 
of Near Eastern affairs. This does not apply, 
of course, to such men as Consul-General 
Ravndal at Constantinople, Consul-General 
Horton at Smyrna, Dr. Howard Bliss, Presi- 
dent of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, 
and certain others, who have lived in the Lev- 
ant for many years and are intimately familiar 
with the intricacies of its politics and the char- 
acters of its peoples. But it does apply to 
those officials who, after hasty and personally 
conducted tours through Asiatic Turkey, or a 
few months' residence in the Turkish capital, 
are accepted as "experts" by the Peace Con- 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 199 

ference and by the Government at Washing- 
ton. When I listen to their dogmatic opinions 
on subjects of which most of them were in 
abysmal ignorance prior to the Armistice, I am 
always reminded of a remark once made to 
me by Sir Edwin Pears, the celebrated historian 
and authority on Turkish affairs. "I don't pre- 
tend to understand the Turkish character," 
Sir Edwin remarked dryly, "but, you see, I 
have lived here only forty years." 

It Is an interesting and altruistic scheme, this 
proposed regeneration at American expense of 
a corrupt and decadent empire, but In their en- 
thusiasm Its supporters seem to have over- 
looked several obvious objections. In the first 
place, though both England and France are 
perfectly willing to have the United States ac- 
cept a mandate for European Turkey, Armenia 
and even Anatolia, I doubt if England would 
welcome with enthusiasm a proposal that she 
should evacuate Palestine and Mesopotamia, 
the conquest of which has cost her so much in 
blood and gold, or whether France would con- 
sent to renounce her claims to Syria, of which 
she has always considered herself the legatee. 
As for Italy and Greece, I imagine that it would 



200 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

prove as difficult to oust the one from Adalla 
and the other from Smyrna as it has been to 
oust the Poet from Fiume. Secondly, such a 
mandate would mean the end of Armenia's 
dream of Independence, for, though she might 
be given a certain measure of autonomy, and 
though she would, of course, no longer be ex- 
posed to Turkish massacres, she would enjoy 
about as much real independence under such an 
arrangement as the native states of India enjoy 
under the British Raj. Lastly, nothing is 
further from our intention, if I know the tem- 
per of my countrymen, than to assume any re- 
sponsibility in order to resurrect the Turk, nor 
are we Interested in preserving the integrity of 
Turkey in any guise, shape or form. Instead 
of perpetuating the unspeakable rule of the 
Osmanli, we should assist in ending it for- 
ever. 

And now we come to the question of accept- 
ing a mandate for Armenia. In order to get 
a mental picture of this foundling which we 
are asked to rear you must imagine a country 
about the size of North Dakota, with Dakota's 
cold winters and scorching summers, consisting 
of a dreary, monotonous, mile-high plateau 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 201 

with grass-covered, treeless mountains and 
watered by many rivers, whose valleys form 
wide strips of arable land. Rising above the 
general level of this Armenian tableland are 
barren and forbidding ranges, broken by many 
gloomy gorges, which culminate, on the ex- 
treme northeast, in the mighty peak of Ararat, 
the traditional resting-place of the Ark. Ar- 
menia is completely hemmed in by alien and 
potentially hostile races. On the northeast are 
the wild tribes of the Caucasus; on the east are 
the Persians, who, though not hostile to Ar- 
menian aspirations, are of the faith of Islam; 
along Armenia's southern border are the 
Kurds, a race as savage, as cruel and as relent- 
less as were the Apaches of our own West; 
on the east is Anatolia, with its overwhelmingly 
Ottoman population. Before the war the 
Armenians in the six Turkish vilayets — Treb- 
izond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, Mamuret-el- 
Aziz and Diarbekir — numbered perhaps 2,- 
000,000, as compared with about 700,000 
Turks. But there is no saying how many 
Armenians remain, for during the past five 
years the Turks have perpetrated a series of 
wholesale massacres in order to be able to tell 



202 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

the Christian Powers, as a Turkish official 
cynically remarked, that "one cannot make a 
state without Inhabitants." 

As just and accurate an estimate of the 
Armenian character as any I have read Is that 
written by Sir Charles William Wilson, per- 
haps the foremost authority on the subject, for 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "The Armenians 
are essentially an Oriental people, possessing, 
like the Jews, whom they resemble in their ex- 
cluslveness and widespread dispersion, a re- 
markable tenacity of race and faculty of 
adaptation to circumstances. They are frugal, 
sober. Industrious and Intelligent and their 
sturdlness of character has enabled them to 
preserve their nationality and religion under 
the sorest trials. They are strongly attached 
to old manners and customs but have also a real 
desire for progress which Is full of promise. 
On the other hand they are greedy of gain, 
quarrelsome In small matters, self-seeking and 
wanting In stability; and they are gifted with a 
tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue 
which has had an unfortunate effect on their 
history. They are deeply separated by religious 
differences and their mutual jealousies, their 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 203 

inordinate vanity, their versatility and their 
cosmopolitan character must always be an 
obstacle to a realization of the dreams of the 
nationahsts. The want of courage and self- 
reliance, the deficiency in truth and honesty 
sometimes noticed in connection with them, are 
doubtless due to long servitude under an un- 
sympathetic government." 

It seems to me that it is time to subordinate 
sentiment to common sense in discussing the 
question of Armenia. I have known many Ar- 
menians and I have the deepest sympathy for 
the woes of that tragic race, but if the Armeni- 
ans are in danger of extermination their fate 
is a matter for the Allies as a whole, or for 
the League of Nations, if there ever is one, 
but not for the United States alone. To ad- 
minister and police Armenia would probably 
require an army corps, or upwards of 50,000 
men, and I doubt if a force of such size could 
be raised for service in so remote and inhos- 
pitable a region without great difficulty. My 
personal opinion is that the Armenians, if given 
the necessary encouragement and assistance, 
are capable of governing themselves. Certainly 
they could not govern themselves more wretch- 



204 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

ediy than the Mexicans, yet there has been no 
serious proposal that the United States should 
take a mandate for Mexico. Everything con- 
sidered, I am convinced that the highest inter- 
ests of Armenia, of America, and of civiliza- 
tion would be best served by making Armenia 
an independent state, having much the same 
relation to the United States as Cuba. Let us 
finance the Armenian Republic by all means, 
let us lend it officers to organize its gendarme- 
rie and teachers for its schools, let us send it 
agricultural and sanitary and building and 
financial experts, and let us give the rest of the 
world, particularly the Turks, to understand 
that we will tolerate no infringement of its 
sovereignity. Do that, set the Armenians on 
their feet, safeguard them poHtically and 
financially, and then leave them to work out 
their own salvation. 

Though prophesying is a dangerous business, 
and likely to lead to embarrassment and cha- 
grin for the prophet, I am willing to hazard a 
guess that the future maps of what was once 
the Ottoman Dominions will be laid out some- 
thing after this fashion: Mesopotamia will be 
tinted red, because it will be British. Pales- 



WILL THE SICK MAN RECOVER? 205 

tine will also be under Britain's aegis — a little 
independent Hebrew state, not much larger 
than Panama. Under the word "Syria" will 
appear the inscription ^'French Protectorate." 
The Adalia region will be designated "Italian 
Sphere of Influence," while Smyrna and its 
immediate hinterland will probably be labeled 
"Greek Sphere." Across the northeastern cor- 
ner of Asia Minor will be spread the words 
"Republic of Armenia" and beneath, in paren- 
theses, "Independence guaranteed by the 
United States." The whole of Anatolia, save 
the Greek and Italian fringes just mentioned, 
will be occupied and ruled by the Turks, for it 
is their ancestral home. The fortifications along 
the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus will be 
leveled and they, with Constantinople, will be 
under some form of international control, with 
equal rights for all nations. But, unless I am 
very much mistaken, the Turks will not be 
driven out of Europe, as has so long been pre- 
dicted; the Ottoman Government will not re- 
tire to Brusa, in Asia Minor, but will continue 
to function in Stamboul, and the Sultan, as the 
religious head of Islam, will still dwell in the 
great white palace atop of Yildiz hill. 



CHAPTER VI 

WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE 
DONE ON THE DANUBE 



WHEN I called upon M. Bratianu, the 
Prime Minister of Rumania, who was 
in Paris as a delegate to the Peace Conference, 
I opened the conversation by innocently re- 
marking that I proposed to spend some weeks 
in his country during my travels in the Balkans. 
But I got no further, for M. Bratianu, whose 
tremendous shoulders and bristling black beard 
make him appear even larger than he is, sprang 
to his feet and brought his fist crashing down 
upon the table. 

"You ought to know better than that. Major 
Powell," he angrily exclaimed. "Rumania is 
not in the Balkans and never has been. We 
object to being called a Balkan people." 

I apologized for my slip, of course, and ami- 
cable relations were resumed, but I mention the 

206 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 207 

Incident as an Illustration of how deeply the 
Rumanians resent the Inclusion of their country 
In that group of turbulent kingdoms which com- 
pose what some one has aptly called the Cock- 
pit of Europe. The Rumanians are as sensi- 
tive In this respect as are the haughty and 
aristocratic Creoles, Inordinately proud of their 
French or Spanish ancestry, when some Igno- 
rant Northerner remarks that he had always 
supposed that Creoles were part negro. Not 
only Is Rumania not one of the Balkan states, 
geographically speaking, but the Rumanians' 
Idea of their country's Importance has been 
enormously Increased as a result of Its recent 
territorial acquisitions, which have made It the 
sixth largest country In Europe, with an area 
very nearly equal to that of Italy and with a 
population three-fourths that of Spain. You 
were not aware, perhaps, that the width of 
Greater Rumania, from east to west. Is as great 
as the width of France from the English Chan- 
nel to the Mediterranean. One has to break 
into a run to keep pace with the march of geog- 
raphy these days. 

Owing to the demoralization prevailing In 
Thrace and Bulgaria, railway communications 



2o8 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

between Constantinople and the Rumanian 
frontier were so disorganized that we decided 
to travel by steamer to Constantza, taking the 
railway thence to Bucharest. Before the war 
the Royal Rumanian mail steamer Carol I was 
as trim and luxuriously fitted a vessel as one 
could have found in Levantine waters. For 
more than a year, however, she was in the hands 
of the Bolsheviks, so that when we boarded her 
her sides were red with rust, her cabins had 
been stripped of everything which could be car- 
ried away, and the straw-filled mattresses, each 
covered with a dubious-looking blanket, were 
as full of unwelcome occupants as the Black 
Sea was of floating mines. 

Constantza, the chief port of Rumania, is 
superbly situated on a headland overlooking 
the Black Sea. It has an excellent harbor, bor- 
dered on one side by a number of large grain 
elevators and on the other by a row of enor- 
mous petroleum tanks — the latter the property 
of an American corporation; a mile or so of 
asphalted streets, several surprisingly fine pub- 
lic buildings, and, on the beautifully terraced 
and landscaped waterfront, an imposing but 
rather ornate casino and many luxurious sum- 




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WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 209 

mer villas, most of which were badly damaged 
when the city was bombarded by the Bulgars. 
Constantza is a favorite seaside resort for Bu- 
charest society and during the season its plage 
is thronged with summer visitors dressed in the 
height of the Paris fashion. From atop his 
marble pedestal in the city's principal square a 
statue of the Roman poet Ovid, who lived here 
in exile for many years, looks quizzically down 
upon the light-hearted throng. 

It is in the neighborhood of 150 miles by 
railway from Constantza to Bucharest and be- 
fore the war the Orient Express used to make 
the journey in less than four hours. Now it 
takes between twenty and thirty. We made a 
record trip, for our train left Constantza at 
four o'clock in the morning and pulled into 
Bucharest shortly before midnight. It is only 
fair to explain, however, that the length of 
time consumed in the journey was due to the 
fact that the bridge across the Danube near 
Tchernavoda, which was blown up by the Bul- 
gars, had not been repaired, thus necessitating 
the transfer of the passengers and their luggage 
across the river on flat-boats, a proceeding 
which required several hours and was marked 



2IO NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

by the wildest confusion. So few trains are 
running in the Balkans that there are never 
enough, or nearly enough, seats to accommo- 
date all the passengers, so that fully as many 
ride on the roofs of the coaches as inside. This 
has the advantage, in the eyes of the passen- 
gers, of making it impracticable for the con- 
ductor to collect the fares, but it also has cer- 
tain disadvantages. During our trip from Con- 
stantza to Bucharest three roof passengers 
rolled off and were killed. 

As a result of the lengthy occupation of the 
city by the Austro-Germans, and their system- 
atic removal of machinery and industrial ma- 
terial of every description, everything is out 
of order in Bucharest. Water, electric lights, 
gas, telephones, elevators, street-cars ^'ne 
marche pas!^ Though we had a large and 
beautifully furnished room in the Palace Hotel 
we had to climb three flights of stairs to reach 
it, the light was furnished by candles, the water 
for the bathroom was brought in buckets, and, 
as the Germans had removed the wires of the 
house-telephones, we had to go Into the hall 
and shout when we required a servant. Yet 
the almost total lack of conveniences does not 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 211 

deter the hotels from making the most exorbi- 
tant charges. Bucharest has always been an 
expensive city but to-day the prices are fantas- 
tic. At Capsa's, which is the most fashionable 
restaurant, it is difficult to get even a modest 
lunch for two for less than twelve dollars. 
But, notwithstanding the destruction of the na- 
tion's chief source of wealth, its oil wells, by 
the Rumanians themselves, in order to prevent 
their use by the enemy, and the systematic loot- 
ing of the country by the invaders, there seems 
to be no lack of money in Bucharest, for the 
restaurants are filled to the doors nightly, there 
is a constant fusillade of champagne corks, and 
in the various gardens, all of which have caba- 
ret performances, the popular dancers are 
showered with silver and notes. In fact, a cus- 
tomary evening In Bucharest is not very far 
removed, in its gaiety and abandon, from a 
New Year's Eve celebration in New York. Not 
even Paris can offer a gayer night life than the 
Rumanian capital, for at the Jockey Club It is 
no uncommon thing for 10,000 francs to change 
hands on the turn of a card or a whirl of the 
roulette wheel; out the Chaussee Kisselew, at 
the White City, the dance floor Is crowded until 



212 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

daybreak with slender, rather effeminate-look- 
ing officers in beautiful uniforms of green or 
pale blue and superbly gowned and bejewelled 
women. Indeed, I doubt if there is any city 
of its size in the world on whose streets one 
sees so many chic and beautiful women, 
though I might add that their jewels are 
generally of a higher quality than their morals. 
As long as these bewitching beauties behave 
themselves they are not molested by the police, 
who seem to have an arrangement with the ho- 
tel managements looking toward their control. 
When Mrs. Powell and I arrived at our hotel 
the proprietor asked us for our passports, 
which, he explained, must be vised by the police. 
The following morning my passport was re- 
turned alone. 

"But where is my wife's passport?" I de- 
manded, for in Southern Europe in these days 
it is impossible to travel even short distances 
without one's papers. 

"But M'sieu must know that we always re- 
tain the lady's passport until he leaves," said 
the proprietor, with a knowing smile. "Then, 
should she disappear with M'sieu's watch, or 
his money, or his jewels, she will not be able to 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 213 

leave the city and the police can quickly arrest 
her. Yes, it is the custom here. A neat idea, 
heinf 

Though I succeeded in obtaining the return 
of Mrs. Powell's passport I am not at all cer- 
tain that I succeeded in entirely convincing the 
hotelier that she really was my wife. 

Rumania is at present passing through a peri- 
od of transition. Not only have the area and 
population of the country been more than dou- 
bled, but the war has changed all other condi- 
tions and the new forms of national life are 
still unsettled. In the summer of 19 18 even 
the most optimistic Rumanians doubted if the 
nation would emerge from the war with more 
than a fraction of its former territory, yet to- 
day, as a result of the acquisition of Transyl- 
vania, Bessarabia and the eastern half of the 
Banat, the country's population has risen from 
seven to fourteen millions and its area from 
50,000 to more than 100,000 square miles. The 
new conditions have brought new laws. Of these 
the most revolutionary is the law which for- 
bids landowners to retain more than 1,000 
acres of their land, the government taking over 
and paying for the residue, which is given to 



214 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

the peasants to cultivate. As a result of this 
policy, there have been practically no strikes 
or labor troubles in Rumania, for, now that 
most of their demands have been conceded, the 
Rumanian peasants seem willing to seek their 
welfare in work instead of Bolshevism. Here- 
tofore the Jews, though liable to military ser- 
vice, have not been permitted a voice in the 
government of their country, but, as a result 
of recent legislation, they have now been 
granted full civil rights, though whether they 
will be permitted to exercise them is another 
question. The Jews, who number upwards of 
a quarter of a million, have a strangle hold on 
the finances of the country and they must not 
be permitted, the Rumanians insist, to get a 
similar grip on the nation's politics. It is only 
very recently, indeed, that Rumanian Jews have 
been granted passports, which meant that only 
those rich enough to obtain papers by bribery 
could enter or leave the country. The Rumani- 
ans with whom I discussed the question said 
quite frankly that the legislation granting suf- 
frage to the Jews would probably be observed 
very much as the Constitutional Amendment 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 215 

granting suffrage to the negroes is observed in 
our own South. 

The truth of the matter is that Rumania is 
in the hands of a clique of selfish and utterly un- 
scrupulous politicians who have grown rich 
from their systematic exploitation of the na- 
tional resources. Every bank and nearly every 
commercial enterprise of importance is in their 
hands. One of the present ministers entered 
the cabiriet a poor man; to-day he is reputed to 
be worth twenty millions. Anything can be 
purchased in Rumania — passports, exemption 
from military service, cabinet portfolios, com- 
mercial concessions — if you have the money to 
pay for it. The fingers of Rumanian officials 
are as sticky as those of the Turks. An officer 
of the American Relief Administration told me 
that barely sixty per cent, of the supplies sent 
from the United States for the relief of the 
Rumanian peasantry ever reached those for 
whom they were intended; the other forty per 
cent, was kept by various officials. To find a 
parallel for the political corruption which ex- 
ists throughout Rumania it is necessary to go 
back to New York under the Tweed adminis- 
tration or to Mexico under the Diaz regime. 



2i6 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

From a wealthy Hungarian landowner, with 
whom I traveled from Bucharest to the fron- 
tier of Jugoslavia, I obtained a graphic idea 
of what can be accomplished by money in Ru- 
mania. This young Hungarian, who had been 
educated in England and spoke with a Cam- 
bridge accent, possessed large estates in north- 
eastern Hungary. After four years' service as 
an officer of cavalry he was demobiHzed upon 
the signing of the Armistice. When the revolu- 
tion led by Bela Kun broke out in Budapest he 
escaped from that city on foot, only to be ar- 
rested by the Rumanians as he was crossing the 
Rumanian frontier. Fortunately for him, he 
had ample funds in his possession, obtained 
from the sale of the cattle on his estate, so that 
he was able to purchase his freedom after 
spending only three days in jail. But his re- 
lease did not materially improve his situation, 
for he had no passport and, as Hungary was 
then under Bolshevist rule, he was unable to 
obtain one. And he realized that without a 
passport it would be impossible for him to join 
his wife and children, who were awaiting him 
in Switzerland. As luck would have It, how- 
ever, he was slightly acquainted with the pre- 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 217 

feet of a small town In Transylvania — for ob- 
vious reasons I shall not mention its name — 
which he finally reached after great difficulty, 
traveling by night and lying hidden by day so 
as to avoid being halted and questioned by the 
Rumanian patrols. By paying the prefect 1,000 
francs and giving him and his friends a dinner 
at the local hotel, he obtained a certificate stat- 
ing that he was a citizen of the town and in 
good standing with the local authorities. 
Armed with this document, which was sufficient 
to convince Inquisitive border officials of his 
Rumanian nationality, he took train for Bucha- 
rest, where he spent five weeks dickering for a 
Rumanian passport which would enable him to 
leave the country. Including the bribes and 
entertainments which he gave to officials, and 
gifts of one sort and another to minor function- 
aries, It cost him something over 25,000 francs 
to obtain a passport duly vised for Switzerland. 
But my friend's anxieties did not end there, for 
a Rumanian leaving the country was not per- 
mitted to take more than 1,000 francs In cur- 
rency with him, those suspected of having In 
their possession funds in excess of this amount 
being subjected to a careful search at the fron- 



2i8 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

tier. My friend had with him, however, sortie- 
thing over 500,000 francs, all that he had been 
able to realize from his estates. How to get 
this sum out of the country was a perplexing 
problem, but he finally solved it by concealing 
the notes, which were of large denomination, in 
the bottom of a Box of expensive face powder, 
which, he explained to the officials at the fron- 
tier, he was taking as a present to his wife. 
When the train drew into the first Serbian sta- 
tion and he realized that he was beyond the 
reach of pursuit, he capered up and down the 
platform like a small boy when school closes 
for the long vacation. 

Considerable astonishment seems to have 
been manifested by the American press 
and public at the disinclination of Rumania and 
Jugoslavia to sign the treaty with Austria with- 
out reservations. Yet this should scarcely oc- 
casion surprise, for the attitude of the 
great among the Allies toward the smaller 
brethren who helped them along the road to 
victory has been at times blameworthy, often 
inexplicable, and on frequent occasions arro- 
gant and tactless. At the outset of the Peace 
Conference some endeavor was made to live up 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 219 

to the promises so loudly made that henceforth 
the rights of the weak were to receive as much 
attention as those of the strong. Commissions 
were formed to study various aspects cf the 
questions involved in the peace and upon these 
the representatives of the smaller nations were 
given seats. But this did not last long. With- 
in a month Messrs. Wilson, Lloyd-George, Cle- 
menceau and Orlando had made themselves 
virtually the dictators of the Peace Confer- 
ence, deciding behind closed doors matters of 
vital moment to the national welfare of the 
small states without so much as taking them 
into consultation. Prime Minister Bratianu, 
who went to Paris as the head of the Rumanian 
peace delegation, told me, his voice hoarse with 
indignation, that the "Big Four," in settling 
Rumania's future boundaries, had not only not 
consulted him but that he had not even been in- 
formed of the terms decided upon. "They hand 
us a fountain pen and say 'Sign here,' " the 
Premier exclaimed, "and then they are sur- 
prised if we refuse to affix our signatures to a 
document which vitally concerns our national 
future but about which we have never been 
consulted." 



220 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

We Americans, of all peoples, should realize 
that a small nation is as jealous of its indepen- 
dence as a large one. As a matter of fact, Ru- 
mania and her sister-states of Southeastern Eu- 
rope, who still bear the scars of Turkish op- 
pression, are super-sensitive in this respect, the 
fact that they have so often been the victims 
of intriguing neighbors making them more than 
ordinarily suspicious and resentful toward any 
action which tends to limit their mastery of 
their own households. Hence they regard that 
clause of the Treaty of St. Germain providing 
for the protection of ethnical minorities with 
an indignation which cannot easily be appreci- 
ated by the Western nations. The boundaries 
of the new and aggrandized states of South- 
eastern Europe will necessarily include alien 
minorities — this cannot be avoided — and the 
Peace Conference held that the welfare of such 
minorities must be the special concern of the 
League of Nations. Take the case of Rumania, 
for example. In order to unite her people she 
must annex some compact masses of aliens 
which, in certain cases at least, have been de- 
liberately planted within ethnological frontiers 
for a specific purpose. The settlements of Mag- 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 221 

yars in Transylvania, who, under Hungarian 
rule, were permitted to exploit their Rumanian 
neighbors without let or hindrance, will not 
willingly surrender the privileges they have so 
long ejoyed and submit to a regime of strict 
justice and equality. On the other hand, Ru- 
mania can scarcely be expected to agree to an 
arrangement which would not only impair her 
sovereignty but would almost certainly encour- 
age intrigue and unrest among these alien mi- 
norities. How would the United States regard 
a proposal to submit its administration of the 
Philippines to international control? How 
would England like the League of Nations to 
take a hand in the government of Ireland? 
That, briefly stated, is the reason why both 
Rumania and Jugoslavia objected so strongly 
to the inclusion of the so-called racial minori- 
ties clause in the Treaty of St. Germain. Look- 
ing at the other side of the question, it is easy 
to understand the solicitude which the treaty- 
makers at Paris displayed for the thousands of 
Magyars, Serbs and Bulgars who, without so 
much as a by-your-leave, they have placed un- 
der Rumanian rule. No less authority than 
Viscount Bryce has made the assertion that in 



222 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Transylvania alone (which, by the way, has an 
area considerably greater than all our New 
England states put together), which has been 
taken over by Rumania, fully a third of the 
population has no affinity with the Rumanians. 
Similarly, there are whole towns in the Dobrud- 
ja which are composed of Bulgarians, there are 
large groups of Russian Slavs in Bessarabia, 
and considerable colonies of Jugoslavs in the 
eastern half of the Banat which, very much 
against their wishes, have been forced to sub- 
mit to Rumanian rule. Whether, now that the 
tables are turned, the Rumanians will put aside 
their ancient animosities and prejudices and 
give these new and unwilling citizens every 
privilege which they themselves enjoy, is a 
question which only the future can solve. 

Another question, which has agitated Ru- 
mania even more violently than that of the ra- 
cial minorities clause, was the demand made 
by the Great Powers that the Rumanian army 
be withdrawn from Hungary and that the live- 
stock and agricultural implements of which that 
unhappy country was stripped by the Rumanian 
forces be immediately returned. Here is the 
Rumanian version: Hungary went Bolshevist 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 223 

and assumed a hostile attitude toward Ruma- 
nia, Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia, the three 
countries which will benefit by her dismember- 
ment according to the principle of nationality. 
Hungary attacked these countries by arms and 
by anarchistic propaganda. The Rumanians, 
the Czechoslovaks and the Jugoslavs, wishing 
to defend themselves, asked permission of the 
Supreme Council to deal drastically with the 
Hungarian menace. The reply, which was late 
in coming, was couched In vague and unsatis- 
factory language. Emboldened by the vacilla- 
tory attitude of the Powers, the Hungarians 
began a military offensive, invading Czecho- 
slovakia and crossing the lines of the Armistice 
in Rumania and Jugoslavia. In order to pre- 
vent a spread of this Bolshevist movement the 
three countries prepared to occupy Hungary 
with troops, whereupon a command came from 
the Supreme Council in Paris that such aggres- 
sion would not be tolerated. This encouraged 
Bela Kun, the Hungarian Trotzky, and made 
him so popular that he succeeded in raising a 
Red army with which he crossed the River 
Theiss and invaded Rumania. Whereupon the 
Rumanian army, being unable to obtain sup- 



224 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

port from the Supreme Council, pushed back 
the Hungarians, occupied Budapest, overthrew 
Bela Kun's administration and restored order 
in Hungary. But the Supreme Council, feel- 
ing that its authority had been ignored by the 
little country, sent several messages to the Ru- 
manian Government peremptorily ordering it 
to withdraw its troops immediately from Hun- 
gary. Here endeth the Rumanian version. 

Now the real reason which actuated the Su- 
preme Council was not that it felt that its au- 
thority had been slighted, but because it was 
informed by its representatives in Hungary that 
the Rumanians had not stopped with ousting 
Bela Kun and suppressing Bolshevism, but were 
engaged in systematically looting the country, 
driving off thousands of head of livestock, and 
carrying away all the machinery, rolling stock, 
telephone and telegraph wires and instruments 
and metalwork they could lay their hands on, 
thereby completely crippling the industries of 
Hungary and depriving great numbers of peo- 
ple of employment. The Rumanians retorted 
that the Austro-German armies had systemati- 
cally looted Rumania during their three years 
of occupation and that they were only taking 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 225 

back what belonged to them. The Hungarians, 
while admitting that Rumania had been pretty 
thoroughly stripped of animals and machinery 
by von Mackensen's armies, asserted that this 
loot had not remained in Hungary but had 
been taken to Germany, which was probably 
true. The Supreme Council took the position 
that the animals and material which the Ruma- 
nians were rushing out of Hungary in train- 
loads was not the sole property of Rumania, 
but that it was the property of all the Allies, 
and that the Supreme Council would apportion 
It among them in its own good time. The 
Council pointed out, furthermore, that if the 
Rumanians succeeded In wrecking Hungary in- 
dustrially, as they were evidently trying to do, 
it would be manifestly impossible for the Hun- 
garians to pay any war indemnity whatsoever. 
And finally, that a bankrupt and starving Hun- 
gary meant a Bolshevist Hungary and that 
there was already enough trouble of that sort 
In Eastern Europe without adding to it. The 
Rumanians proving deaf to these arguments, 
the Supreme Council sent three messages, one 
after the other, to the Bucharest government, 
ordering the Immediate withdrawal from Hun- 



226 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

garian soil of the Rumanian troops. Yet the 
Rumanian troops remained in Budapest and the 
looting of Hungary continued, the Rumanian 
government declaring that the messages had 
never been received. Meanwhile every one in 
the kingdom, from Premier to peasant, was 
laughing in his sleeve at the helplessness of the 
Supreme Council. But they laughed too soon. 
For the Supreme Council wired to the Food 
Administrator, Herbert Hoover, who was in 
Vienna, informing him of the facts of the situa- 
tion, whereupon Mr. Hoover, who has a blunt 
and uncomfortably direct way of achieving his 
ends, sent a curt message to the Rumanian 
government informing it that, if the orders of 
the Supreme Council were not immediately 
obeyed, he would shut off its supplies of food. 
That message produced action. The troops 
were withdrawn. I can recall no more striking 
example of the amazing changes brought about 
in Europe by the Great War than the picture 
of this boyish-faced Californian mining engi- 
neer coolly giving orders to a European gt)v- 
ernment, and having those orders promptly 
obeyed, after the commands of the Great Pow- 
ers had been met with refusal and derision. To 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 227 

take a slight liberty with the lines of Mr. Kip- 
ling— 

"The Kings must come down and the Emperors frown 
When Herbert Hoover says 'Stop!"* 

Up to that time the United States had been 
immensely popular in Rumania. But Mr. Hoo- 
ver^s action made us about as popular with the 
Rumanians as the smallpox. He and we were 
charged with being actuated by the most des- 
picable and sordid motives. The King him- 
self told me that he was convinced that Mr. 
Hoover was in league with certain great com- 
mercial interests which wished to take their re- 
venge for their failure to obtain commercial 
concessions of great value in Rumania. A cabi- 
net minister, in discussing the incident with me, 
became so inarticulate with rage that he could 
scarcely talk at all. 

But the United States is not the only country 
which has lost the confidence of the Rumanians. 
France is even more deeply distrusted and dis- 
liked than we are. And this in spite of the 
fact that the upper classes of Rumania have 
held up the French as their ideal for the past 
fifty years. Indeed, wealthy Rumanians live 



228 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

In a fashion more French than if they dwelt in 
Paris itself. This sudden unpopularity of the 
French is due to several causes. After having 
expected much of them, the people were 
amazed and bitterly disappointed at their ap- 
parent indifference toward the future of Ru- 
mania. Then there were the unfortunate inci- 
dents at Odessa, the withdrawal of the French 
forces from that city before the advance of the 
Bolsheviks, and the regrettable happening in 
the French Black Sea fleet. These things, of 
course, contributed to loss of French prestige. 
Another contributory factor has been the lack 
of enterprise of French capitalists, causing 
those who control the financial and economic 
development of Rumania to seek encourage- 
ment and assistance elsewhere. But the under- 
lying reason for the deep-seated distrust of 
France is to be found, I think, in France's at- 
tempt to maintain the balance of power in 
Southeastern Europe by building up a strong 
Jugoslavia. Now the Rumanians, it must be 
remembered, hate the Jugoslavs even more bit- 
terly than they hate the Hungarians — ^and they 
are far more afraid of them. This hatred is 
not merely the result of the age-long antago- 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 229 

nism between the Latin and the Slav; it is also 
political. The Rumanians have watched with 
growing jealousy and apprehension the expan- 
sion of Serbia into a state with a population 
and area nearly equal to their own. After hav- 
ing long dreamed of the day when they would 
themselves be arbiters of the destinies of the 
nations of Southeastern Europe, they see their 
political supremacy challenged by the new King- 
dom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, behind 
which they discern the power and influence of 
France. When the dismemberment of the Aus- 
tro-Hungarian Empire began, Rumania de- 
manded and expected the whole of the great 
rich province of the Banat, with the Maros 
River for her northern and the Danube for her 
southern frontier. 

**But that would place our capital within 
range of the Rumanian artillery," the Serbian 
prime minister Is said to have exclaimed. 

*'Then move your capital," the Rumanian 
premier responded drily. 

As a result of this controversy over the Ba- 
nat the relations of the two nations have been 
strained almost to the breaking-point. When 
I was in the Banat in the autumn of 19 19 the 



230 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Rumanian and Serbian frontier guards were 
glowering at each other like fighting terriers 
held in leash, and the slightest untoward inci- 
dent would have precipitated a conflict.' Al- 
though, by the terms of the Treaty of St. Ger- 
main, Jugoslavia was awarded the western half 
of the Banat, Rumania Is prepared to take ad- 
vantage of the first opportunity which presents 
itself to take it away from her rival. When I 
was in Bucharest a cabinet minister concluded 
a lengthy exposition of Rumania's position by 
declaring : 

''Within the next two or three years, in all 
probability, there will be a war between Jugo- 
slavia and Italy over the Dalmatian question. 
The day that Jugoslavia goes to war with Italy 
we will attack Jugoslavia and seize the Banat. 
The Danube Is Rumania's natural and logical 
frontier." 

This would seem to bear out the assertion 
that there exists a secret alliance between Italy 
and Rumania, which, if true, would place Jugo- 
slavia in the unhappy postion of a nut between 
the jaws of a cracker. I have also been told 
on excellent authority that there is likewise an 
''understanding" between Italy and Bulgaria 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 231 

that, should the former become engaged in a 
war with the Jugoslavs, the latter will attack 
the Serbs from the east and regain her lost 
provinces in Macedonia. A pleasant prospect 
for Southeastern Europe, truly. 

While we were In Bucharest we received an 
invitation — "command" is the correct word ac- 
cording to court usage — to visit the King and 
Queen of Rumania at their Chateau of Pelesch, 
near Sinala, in the Carpathians. It is about a 
hundred miles by road from the capital to Si- 
nala and the first half of the journey, which 
we made by motor, was over a road as execra- 
ble as any we found in the Balkans. Upon 
reaching the foothills of the Carpathians, how- 
ever, the highway, which had been steadily 
growing worse, suddenly took a turn for the 
better — due, no doubt, to the invigorating quali- 
ties of the mountain atmosphere — and climbed 
vigorously upward through wild gorges and 
splendid pine forests which reminded me of the 
Adirondacks of Northern New York. Not- 
withstanding the atrocious condition of the 
highway, which constantly threatened to dis- 
locate our joints as well as those of the car, 
and the choking, blinding clouds of yellow 



232 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

dust, every change of figure on the speedometer 
brought new and interesting scenes. For mile 
after mile the road, straight as though marked 
out by a ruler, ran between fields of wheat and 
corn as vast as those of our own West. In 
spite of the fact that the Austro-Germans car- 
ried off all the animals and farming implements 
they could lay their hands on, the agricultural 
prosperity of Rumania is astounding. In 191 6, 
for example, while involved in a terribly de* 
structive war, Rumania produced more wheat 
than Minnesota and about twenty-five times as 
much corn as our three Pacific Coast states 
combined. At frequent intervals we passed huge 
scarlet threshing machines, most of them la- 
beled "Made in U.S.A.," which were centers 
of activity for hundreds of white-smocked peas- 
ants who were hauling in the grain with ox- 
teams, feeding it into the voracious maws of 
the machines, and piling the residue of straw 
into the largest stacks I have ever seen. As 
we drew near the mountains the grain fields 
gave way to grazing lands where great herds 
of cattle of various breeds — ^brindled milch ani- 
mals, massive cream-colored oxen, blue-gray 
buffalo with elephant like hides and broad, curv- 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 233 

ing horns, and gaunt steers that looked for all 
the world like Texas longhorns — browsed amid 
the lush green grass. 

Though the villages of the Wallachlan plain 
are few and far between, and though it is no 
uncommon thing for a peasant to walk a dozen 
miles from his home to the fields in which he 
works, the whole region seemed a-hum with 
industry. The Rumanian peasant, like his fel- 
lows below the Danube, is, as a rule, a good- 
natured, easy-going though easily excited, rea- 
sonably honest and extremely industrious fel- 
low who labors from dawn to darkness in six 
days of the week and spends the seventh in 
harmless village carouses, chiefly characterized 
by dancing, music and the cheap native wine. 
Rumania is one of the few countries in Europe 
where the peasants still dress like the pictures 
on the postcards. The men wear curly-brimmed 
shovel hats of black felt, like those affected by 
English curates, and loose shirts of white linen, 
whose tails, instead of being tucked into the 
trousers, flap freely about their legs, giving 
them the appearance of having responded to an 
alarm of fire without waiting to finish dressing. 
On Sundays and holidays men and women alike 



234 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

appear In garments covered with the gorgeous 
needlework for which Rumania Is famous, some 
of the women's dresses being so heavily em- 
broidered In gold and silver that from a little 
distance the wearers look as though they were 
enveloped In chain mail. A considerable and 
undesirable element of Rumania's population 
consists of gipsies, whence their name of Ro- 
many, or Rumani. The Rumanian gipsies, who 
are nomads and vagrants like their kinsmen in 
the United States, are generally lazy, quarrel- 
some, dishonest and untrustworthy, supporting 
themselves by horse-trading and cattle-stealing 
or by their flocks and herds. We stopped near 
one of their picturesque encampments In order 
to repair a tire and I took a picture of a young 
woman with a child In her arms, but when I 
declined to pay her the five lei she demanded 
for the privilege, she flew at me like an angry 
cat, screaming curses and maledictions. But 
her picture was not worth five lei, as you can 
see for yourself. 

The Castle of Pelesch is just such a royal 
residence as Anthony Hope has depicted in The 
Prisoner of Zenda. It gives the impression, 
at first sight, of a confusion of turrets, gables, 




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WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 235 

balconies, terraces, parapets and fountains, but 
one quickly forgets its architectural shortcom- 
ings in the beauty of its surroundings. It stands 
amid velvet lawns and wonderful rose gardens 
in a sort of forest glade, from which the pine- 
clothed slopes of the Carpathians rise steeply 
on every side, the beam-and-plaster walls, the 
red-tiled roofs, and the blazing gardens of the 
chateau forming a striking contrast to the au- 
sterity of the mountains and the solemnity of 
the encircling forest. 

We had rather expected to be presented to 
Queen Marie with some semblance of formal- 
ity in one of the reception rooms of the chateau, 
but she sent word by her lady-in-waiting that 
she would receive us in the gardens. A few 
minutes later she came swinging toward us 
across a great stretch of rolling lawn, a splen- 
did figure of a woman, dressed in a magnificent 
native costume of white and silver, a white 
scarf partially concealing her masses of tawny 
hair, a long-bladed poniard in a silver sheath 
hanging from her girdle. At her heels were 
a dozen Russian wolf hounds, the gift, so she 
told me, of the Grand Duke Nicholas, the for- 
mer commander-in-chief of the Russian armies. 



236 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

I have seen many queens, but I have never seen 
one who so completely meets the popular con- 
ception of what a queen should look like as 
Marie of Rumania. Though in the middle for- 
ties, her complexion is so faultless, her phy- 
sique so superb, her presence so commanding 
that, were she utterly unknown, she would still 
be a center of attraction in any assemblage. 
Had she not been born to a crown she would 
almost certainly have made a great name for 
herself, probably as an actress. She paints ex- 
ceptionally well and has written several suc- 
cessful books and stories, thereby following the 
example of her famous predecessor on the Ru- 
manian throne. Queen Elizabeth, better known 
as Carmen Sylva. She speaks English like an 
Englishwoman, as well she may, for she is 
a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She is 
also a descendant of the Romanoffs, for one of 
her grandfathers was Alexander III of Russia. 
In her manner she is more simple and demo- 
cratic than many American women that I know, 
her poise and simplicity being in striking con- 
trast to the manners of two of my countrywom- 
en who had spent the night preceding our ar- 
rival at the castle and who were manifestly much 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 237 

impressed by this contact with the Lord's An- 
ointed. When luncheon was announced her sec- 
ond daughter, Princess Marie, had not put in an 
appearance. But, instead of despatching the 
major domo to inform her Royal Highness that 
the meal was served, the Queen stepped to the 
foot of the great staircase and called, "Hurry 
up, MIgnon. You're keeping us all waiting," 
whereupon a voice replied from the upper re- 
gions, *'A11 right, mamma. I'll be down in a 
minute." Not much like the picture of palace 
life that the novelists and the motion-picture 
playwrights give us, is it? I might add that the 
Queen commonly refers to the plump young 
princess as "Fatty," a nickname which she hard- 
ly deserves, however. In her conversations 
with me the Queen was at times almost dis- 
concertingly frank. "Royalty is going out of 
fashion," she remarked on one occasion, "but 
I like my job and I'm going to do everything 
I can to keep it." To Mrs. Powell she said, "I 
have beauty. Intelligence and executive ability. 
I would be successful in life if I were not a 



n 



queen. 

Unlike many persons who occupy exalted po- 
sitions, she has a real sense of humor. 



23B NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

**Yesterday," she remarked, *'was Nicholases 
birthday," referring to her second son. Prince 
Nicholas, who, since his elder brother. Prince 
Carol, renounced his rights to the throne in or- 
der to marry the girl he loved, has become the 
heir apparent. ''At breakfast his father re- 
marked, 'I'm sorry, Nicholas, but I haven't any 
birthday present for you. The shops in Bu- 
charest were pretty well cleaned out by the Ger- 
mans, you know, and I didn't remember your 
birthday in time to send to Paris for a present.' 
*Do you really wish to give Nicholas a pres- 
ent, Nando?' (the diminutive of Ferdinand) 
I asked him. 'Of course I do,' the King an- 
swered, 'but what Is there to give him ?' 'That's 
the easiest thing in the world,' I replied. 'There 
is nothing that would give Nicholas so much 
pleasure as an engraving of his dear father — 
on a thousand-franc note.' " 

Prince Nicholas, the future king of Rumania, 
who Is being educated at Eton, looks and acts 
like any normal American "prep" school boy. 

"Do the boys still wear top hats at Eton?" 
I asked him. 

"Yes, they do," he answered, "but It's a silly 
custom. And they cost two guineas apiece. I 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 239 

leave it to you, Major, if two guineas isn't too 
much for any hat." 

When I told him that in democratic America 
certain Fifth Avenue hatters charge the equiva- 
lent of five guineas for a bowler he looked at 
me in frank unbelief. ''But then," he remarked, 
**all Americans are rich." 

Shortly before luncheon we were joined by 
King Ferdinand, a slenderly built man, some- 
what under medium height, with a grizzled 
beard, a genial smile and merry, twinkling eyes. 
He wore the gray-green field uniform and gold- 
laced kepi of a Rumanian general, the only 
thing about his dress which suggested his ex- 
alted rank being the insignia of the Order of 
Michael the Brave, which hung from his neck 
by a gold-and-purple ribbon. Were you to see 
him in other clothes and other circumstances 
you might well mistake him for an active and 
successful professional man. King Ferdinand 
is the sort of man one enjoys chatting with in 
front of an open fire over the cigars, for, in 
addition to being a shrewd judge of men and 
event's and having a remarkably exact knowl- 
edge of world affairs, he possesses in an alto- 



240 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

gather exceptional degree the qualities of tact, 
kindliness and humor. 

The King did not hesitate to express his in- 
dignation that the re-making of the map of 
Europe should have been entrusted to men who 
possessed so little first-hand knowledge of the 
nations whose boundaries they were re-shaping. 

"A few days before the signing of the Treaty 
of St. Germain/' he told me, "Lloyd George 
sent for one of the experts attached to the 
Peace Conference. 

" 'Where is this Banat that Rumania and 
Serbia are quarreling over?' he inquired. 

" 'I will show you, sir,' the attache answered, 
unrolling a map of southeastern Europe. For 
several minutes he explained in detail to the 
British Premier the boundaries of the Banat 
and the conflicting territorial claims to which its 
division had given rise. But when he paused 
Lloyd George made no response. He was sound 
asleep ! 

"Yet a little group of men," the King con- 
tinued, "who know no more about the nations 
v/hose destinies they are deciding than Lloyd 
George knew about the Banat, have abrogated 
to themselves the right to cut up and apportion 



WHAT PEACE-MAKERS DID 241 

territories as casually as though they were di- 
viding apple-tarts." 

The impression prevails in other countries 
that it is Queen Marie who is really the head 
of the Rumanian royal family and that the 
King is little more than a figurehead. With this 
estimate I do not agree. Rumania could have 
no better spokesman than Queen Marie, whose 
talents, beauty, and exceptional tact peculiarly 
fit her for the difficult role she has been called 
upon to play. But the King, though he is by 
nature quiet and retiring, is by no means lack- 
ing in political sagacity or the courage of his 
convictions, being, I am convinced, as impor- 
tant a factor in the government of his country 
as the limitations of its constitution permit. 
Though none too well liked, I imagine, by the 
professional politicians, who in Rumania, as in 
other countries, resent any attempt at inter- 
ference by the sovereign with their plans, the 
royal couple are immensely popular with the 
masses of the people, Ferdinand frequently be- 
ing referred to as "the peasants' King." In 
the darkest days of the war, when Rumania 
was overrun by the enemy and it seemed as 
though Moldavia and the northern Dobrudja 



242 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

were all that could be saved to the nation, King 
Ferdinand and Queen Marie, instead of escap- 
ing from their country or asking the enemy for 
terms, retreated with the army to Jassy, on the 
easternmost limits of the kingdom, where they 
underwent the horrors of that terrible winter 
with their soldiers, the King serving with the 
troops in the field and the Queen working in 
the hospitals as a Red Cross nurse. Less than 
three years later, however, on November twen- 
tieth, 19 1 9, there assembled in Bucharest the 
first parliament of Greater Rumania, attended 
by deputies from all those Rumanian regions 
— Bessarabia, Transylvania, the Banat, the Bu- 
covina and the Dobrudja — which had been re- 
stored to the Rumanian motherland. At the 
head of the chamber, in the great gilt chair of 
state, sat Ferdinand I, who, from the fugitive 
ruler, shivering with his ragged soldiers in the 
frozen marshes beside the Pruth, has become 
the sovereign of a country having the sixth 
largest population in Europe and has taken his 
place in Rumanian history beside Stephen the 
Great and Michael the Brave as Ferdinand the 
Liberator. 



CHAPTER VII 
MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 

FROM the young officers who wore on their 
shoulders the silver greyhound of the 
American Courier Service we heard many dis- 
couraging tales of the annoyances and discom- 
forts for which we must be prepared in travel- 
ing through Hungary, the Banat and Jugo- 
slavia. But, to tell the truth, I did not take 
these warnings very seriously, for I had ob- 
served that a profoundly pessimistic attitude 
of mind characterized all of the Americans or 
English whose duties had kept them in the 
Balkans for any length of time. In Salonika 
this mental condition was referred to as "the 
Balkan tap" — derived, no doubt, from the verb 
''to knock," as with a hammer — and it usually 
implied that those suffering from the ailment 
had outstayed their period of usefulness and 
should be sent home. 

243 



244 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

Thrice weekly a train composed of an as- 
sortment of ramshackle and dilapidated coach- 
es, called by courtesy the Orient Express, 
which maintained an average speed of fifteen 
miles an hour, left Bucharest for Vincovce, a 
small junction town In the Banat, where It was 
supposed to make connections with the south- 
bound SImplon Express from Paris to Belgrade 
and with the north-bound express from Bel- 
grade to Paris. The SImplon Express likewise 
ran thrice weekly, so, if the connections were 
missed at Vincovce, the passengers were com- 
pelled to spend at least two days in a small 
Hungarian town which was notorious, even in 
that region, for its discomforts and its dirt. 
All went well with us, however, the train at 
one time attaining the dizzy speed of thirty 
miles an hour, until, in a particularly desolate 
portion of the great Hungarian plain, we came 
to an abrupt halt. When, after a half hour's 
wait, I descended to ascertain the cause of the 
delay, I found the train crew surrounded by a 
group of Indignant and protesting passengers. 

^'What's the trouble?" I inquired. 

**The engineer claims that he has run out of 
coal," some one answered, "But he savs that 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 245 

there Is a coal depot three or four kilometers 
ahead and that, if each first-class passenger will 
contribute fifty francs, and each second-class 
passenger twenty francs, he figures that it will 
enable him to buy just enough coal to reach Vin- 
covce. Otherwise, he says, we will probably 
miss both connections, which means that we 
must stay in Vincovce for forty-eight hours. 
And if you had ever seen Vincovce you would 
understand that such a prospect is anything but 
alluring." 

While my fellow-passengers were noisily de- 
bating the question I strolled ahead to take a 
look at the engine. As I had been led to ex- 
pect from the stories I had heard from the cou- 
rier officers, the tender contained an ample sup- 
ply of coal — enough, it seemed to me, to haul 
the train to Trieste. 

"This is nothing but a hold-up," I told the 
assembled passengers. "There Is plenty of 
coal in the tender. I am as anxious to make 
the connection as any of you, but I will settle 
here and raise bananas, or whatever they do 
raise in the Banat, before I will submit to this 
highwayman's demands." 

Seeing that his bluff had been called, the en- 



246 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

gineer, favoring me with a murderous glance, 
sullenly climbed into his cab and the train start- 
ed, only to stop again, however, a few miles 
further on, this time, the engineer explained, 
because the engine had broken down. There 
being no way of disputing this statement, it be- 
came a question of pay or stay — and we stayed. 
The engineer did not get his tribute and we 
did not get our train at Vincovce, where we 
spent twenty hot, hungry and extremely dis- 
agreeable hours before the arrival of a local 
train bound for Semlin, across the Danube from 
Belgrade. We completed our journey to the 
Jugoslav capital in a fourth-class compartment 
Into which were already squeezed two Serbian 
soldiers, eight peasants, a crate of live poultry 
and a dog, to say nothing of a multitude of 
small and undesired occupants whose presence 
caused considerable annoyance to every one, in- 
cluding the dog. We were glad when the tralh 
arrived at Semlin. 

Late in the summer of 19 19, as a result of 
the reconstruction of the railway bridges which 
had been blown up by the Bulgarians early In 
the war, through service between Salonika and 
Belgrade was restored. As the journey con- 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 247 

sumed from three to five days, however, the 
train stopping for the night at stations where 
the hotel accommodation was of the most im- 
possible description, the American and British 
officials and relief-workers who were compelled 
to make the journey (I never heard of any one 
making it for pleasure) usually hired a freight 
car, which they fitted up with army cots and a 
small cook-stove, thus traveling in comparative 
comfort. 

Curiously enough, the only trains running on 
anything approaching a schedule in the Balkans 
were those loaded with Swiss goods and be- 
longing to the Swiss Government. In crossing 
Southern Hungary we passed at least half-a- 
dozen of them, they being readily distinguished 
by a Swiss flag painted on each car. Each train, 
consisting of forty cars, was accompanied by 
a Swiss ofiicer and twenty infantrymen — finely 
set-up fellows in feldgrau with steel helmets 
modeled after the German pattern. Had the 
trains not been thus guarded, I was told, the 
goods would never have reached their destina- 
tion and the cars, which are the property of 
the Swiss State Railways, would never have 
been returned. It is by such drastic methods 



248 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

as this that Switzerland, though hard hit by the 
war, has kept the wheels of her Industries turn- 
ing and her currency from serious depredation. 
I have rarely seen more hopeless-looking 
people than those congregated on the platforms 
of the little stations at which we stopped In 
Hungary. The Rumanian armies had swept 
the country clean of livestock and agricultural 
machinery, throwing thousands of peasants out 
of work, and, owing to the appalling deprecia- 
tion of the kroner, which was worth less than 
a twentieth of Its normal value, great numbers 
of people who, under ordinary conditions, 
would have been described as comfortably well 
off, found themselves with barely sufficient re- 
sources to keep themselves from want. To add 
to their discouragement, the greatest uncertain- 
ty prevailed as to Hungary's future. In order 
to obtain an idea of just how familiar the in- 
habitants of the rural districts were with po- 
litical conditions, I asked four intelligent-look- 
ing men in succession who was the ruler of 
Hungary and what was its present form of 
government. The first opined that the Arch- 
duke Joseph had been chosen king; another 
ventured the belief that the country was a re- 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 249 

public with Bela Kun as president; the third 
asserted that Hungary had been annexed to 
Rumania; while the last man I questioned said 
quite frankly that he didn't know who was 
running the country, or what Its form of gov- 
ernment was, and that he didn't much care. As 
a result of the decision of the Peace Confer- 
ence which awarded Transylvania to Rumania 
and divided the Banat between Rumania and 
Jugoslavia, Hungary finds herself stripped of 
virtually all her forests, all her mines, all her 
oil wells, and all of her manufactories save 
those In Budapest, thus stripping the bankrupt 
and demoralized nation of practically all of her 
resources save her wheat-fields. I talked with 
a number of Americans and English who were 
conversant with Hungary's internal condition 
and they agreed that It was doubtful if the 
country, stripped of Its richest territories, de- 
prived of most of Its resources, and hemmed 
in by hostile and jealous peoples, could long ex- 
ist as an Independent state. On several occa- 
sions I heard the opinion expressed that sooner 
or later the Hungarians, In order to save them- 
selves from complete ruin, would ask to be ad- 
mitted to the Jugoslav Confederation, thereby 



250 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

obtaining for their products an outlet to the 
sea. In any event, the Hungarians appear to 
have a more friendly feeling for their Jugoslav 
neighbors than for the Rumanians, whom they 
charge with a deliberate attempt to bring about 
their economic ruin. 

In spite of the prohibitive cost of labor and 
materials, we found that the traces of the Aus- 
trian bombardment of Belgrade in 19 14, which 
did enormous damage to the Serbian capital, 
were rapidly being effaced and that the city was 
fast resuming Its pre-war appearance. The 
place was as busy as a boom town in the oil 
country. The Grand Hotel, where the food 
was the best and cheapest we found In the Bal- 
kans, was filled to the doors with officers, poli- 
ticians, members of parliament — for the Skup- 
shtlna was In session — relief workers, commer- 
cial travelers and concession seekers, and the 
huge Hotel Moskowa, built, I believe, with 
Russian capital, was about to reopen. Archi- 
tecturally, Belgrade shows many traces of Mus- 
covite Influence, many of the more Important 
buildings having the ornate facades of pink, 
green and purple tiles, the colored glass win- 
dows, and the gilded domes which are so char- 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 251 

acteristlcally Russian. Though the main thor- 
oughfare of the city, formerly called the Tera- 
sla but now known as Milan Street, Is admira- 
bly paved with wooden blocks, the cobble pave- 
ments of the other streets have remained un- 
changed since the days of Turkish rule, being 
so rough that it is almost Impossible to drive 
a motor car over them without Imminent dan- 
ger of breaking the springs. Five minutes' walk 
from the center of the city, on a promontory 
commanding a superb view of the Danube and 
its junction with the Save, is a really charming 
park known as the Slopes of Dreaming, where, 
on fine evenings, almost the entire population 
of the capital appears to be promenading, the 
rather drab appearance of an urban crowd be- 
ing brightened by the gaily embroidered cos- 
tumes of the peasants and the silver-trimmed 
uniforms of the Serbian officers. 

The palace known as the Old Konak, where 
King Alexander and Queen Draga were assas- 
sinated under peculiarly revolting circumstances 
on the night of June 11, 1905, and from an 
upper window of which their mutilated bodies 
were thrown Into the garden, has been torn 
down, presumably because of its unpleasant as- 



252 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

sociations for the present dynasty, but only a 
stone's throw away from the tragic spot is be- 
ing erected a large and ornate palace of gray 
stone, ornamented with numerous carvings, as 
a residence for Prince-Regent Alexander, who, 
when I was there, was occupying a modest one- 
story building on the opposite side of the street. 
By far the most interesting building in Bel- 
grade, however, is a low, tile-roofed, white- 
walled wine-shop at the corner of Knes Miha- 
jelowa Uliza and Kolartsch Uliza, which is 
pointed out to visitors as ''the Cradle of the 
War," for In the low-ceilinged room on the sec- 
ond floor is said to have been hatched the plot 
which resulted in the assasination of the Aus- 
trian archducal couple at Serajevo in the spring 
of 19 14 and thereby precipitated Armageddon. 
In this conection, here is a story, told me by 
a Czechoslovak who had served as an officer in 
the Serbian army during the war, which throws 
an interesting sidelight on the tragedy of Sera- 
jevo. This officer's uncle, a colonel in the Aus- 
trian army, had been, It seemed, equerry to the 
Archduke Ferdinand, being in attendance on 
the Archduke at the Imperial shooting-lodge 
in Bohemia when, early in the spring of 19 14, 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 253 

the German Emperor, accompanied by Admiral 
von TIrpItz, went there, ostensibly for the 
shooting. The day after their arrival, accord- 
ing to my Informant's story, the Emperor and 
the Archduke went out with the guns, leaving 
Admiral von TIrpitz at the lodge with the 
Archduchess. The equerry, who was on duty 
in an anteroom, through a partly opened door 
overheard the Admiral urging the Archduchess 
to obtain the consent of her husband — with 
whom she was known to exert extraordinary 
influence — to a union of Austria-Hungary with 
Germany upon the death of Francis Joseph, 
who was then believed to be dying — a scheme 
which had long been cherished by the Kaiser 
and the Pan-Germans. 

*'Never will I lend my influence to such a 
plan!" the equerry heard the Archduchess vio- 
lently exclaim. "Never! Never! Never!" 

At the moment the Emperor and the Arch- 
duke, having returned from their battue, en- 
tered the room, whereupon the Archduchess, 
her voice shrill with indignation, poured out to 
her husband the story of von Tirpltz's pro- 
posal. The Archduke, always noted for the 
violence of his temper, promptly sided with his 



254 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

wife, angrily accusing the Kaiser of intriguing 
behind his back against the independence of Aus- 
tria. Ensued a violent altercation between the 
ruler of Germany and the Austrian heir-appar- 
ent, which ended in the Kaiser and his adviser 
abruptly terminating their visit and departing 
the same evening for Berlin. 

For the truth of this story I do not vouch; 
I merely repeat it in the words in which it 
was told to me by an officer whose veracity I 
have no reason to question. There are many 
things which point to its probability. Certain 
it is that the Archduke, who was a man of 
strong character and passionately devoted to 
the best interests of the Dual Monarchy, was 
the greatest obstacle to the Kaiser's scheme for 
the union of the two empires under his rule, 
a scheme which, could it have been realized, 
would have given Germany that highroad to 
the East and that outlet to the Warm Water 
of which the Pan-Germans had long dreamed. 
The assassination of the Archduke a few weeks 
later not only removed the greatest stumbling- 
block to these schemes of Teutonic expansion, 
but it further served the Kaiser's purpose by 
forcing Austria into war with Serbia, thereby 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 255 

making Austria responsible, In the eyes of the 
world, for launching the conflict which the Kai- 
ser had planned. 

There has never been any conclusive proof, 
remember, that the Serbs were responsible for 
Ferdinand's assasinatlon. Not that there is 
anything in their history which would lead one 
to believe that they would balk at that method 
of removing an enemy, but, regarded from a 
political standpoint, it would have been the 
most unintelligent and short-sighted thing they 
could possibly have done. Nor are the Serbs 
and the Pan-Germans the only ones to whom 
the crime might logically be traced. Fer- 
dinand, remember, had many enemeis within 
the borders of his own country. The Austrian 
anti-clericals hated and distrusted him because 
he surrounded himself by Jesuit advisers and 
because he was believed to be unduly under the 
influence of the Church of Rome. He was 
equally unpopular with a large and powerful 
element of the Hungarians, who foresaw a se- 
rious diminution of their influence in the af- 
fairs of the monarchy should the Archduke suc- 
ceed in realizing his dream of a Triple King- 



256 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

dom composed of Austria, Hungary and the 
Southern Slavs. 

Strange indeed are the changes which have 
been brought about by the greatest conflict. Fer- 
dinand, descendant of a long line of princes, 
kings and emperors, has passed round that dark 
corner whence no man returns, but his ambi- 
tious dreams of a triple kingdom which would 
include the Southern Slavs have survived him, 
though in a somewhat modified form. But he 
who sits on the throne of the new kingdom, and 
who rules to-day over a great portion of the 
former dominions of the Hapsburgs, instead 
of being a scion of the Imperial House of Aus- 
tria, is the great-grandson of a Serbian black- 
smith. 

Owing to the ill-health and advanced age of 
King Peter of Serbia, his second son, Alexan- 
der, is Prince-Regent of the Kingdom of the 
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Prince Alexan- 
der, a slender, dark-complexioned man with 
characteristically Slav features, was educated 
in Vienna and is said to be an excellent soldier. 
He is extremely democratic, simple in manner, 
a student, a hard worker, and devoted to the 
best interests of his people. Though he is an 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 257 

accomplished horseman, a daring, even reck- 
less motorist, and an excellent shot, he Is prob- 
ably the loneliest man in his kingdom, for he 
has no close associates of his own age, being 
surrounded by elderly and serious-minded 
advisers; his aged father is In a sanitarium, his 
scapegrace elder brother lives in Paris, and his 
sister, a Russian grand duchess, makes her 
home on the Riviera. Though old beyond his 
years and visibly burdened by the responsibili- 
ties of his difficult position, he possesses a pe- 
culiarly winning manner and is immensely 
popular with his soldiers, whose hardships he 
shared throughout the war. Though he enjoys 
no great measure of popularity among his new 
Croat and Slovene subjects, who might be ex- 
pected to regard any Serb ruler with a certain 
degree of jealousy and suspicion, he has un- 
questionably won their profound respect. It 
is a difficult and trying position which this 
young man occupies, and It Is not made any 
easier for him, I imagine, by the knowledge 
that, should he make a false step, should he 
arouse the enmity of certain of the powerful 
factions which surround him, the fate of his 



258 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

predecessor and namesake, King Alexander, 
might quite conceivably befall him. 

I have been asked if, in my opinion, the 
peoples composing the new state of Jugoslavia 
will stick together. If there could be effected 
a confederation, modeled on that of Switzer- 
land or the United States, in which the com- 
ponent states would have equal representation, 
with the executive power vested in a Federal 
Council, as in Switzerland, then I believe that 
Jugoslavia would develop into a stable and 
prosperous nation. But I very much doubt if 
the Croats, the Slovenes, the Bosnians and the 
Montenegrins will willingly consent to a per- 
manent arrangement whereby the new nation is 
placed under a Serbian dynasty, no matter how 
complete are the safeguards afforded by the 
constitution or how conscientious and fair- 
minded the sovereign himself may be. No one 
questions the ability or the honesty of purpose 
of Prince Alexander, but the non-Serb elements 
feel, and not wholly without justification, that 
a Serbian prince on the throne means Serbian 
politicians in places of authority, thereby giv- 
ing Serbia a disproportionate share of authority 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 259 

in the government of Jugoslavia, as Prussia had 
In the government of the German Empire. 

Already there have been manifestations of 
friction between the Serbs and the Croats and 
between the Serbs and the Slovenes, to say 
nothing of the open hostility which exists be- 
tween the Serbs and certain Montenegrin fac- 
tions, to which I have alluded in a preceding 
chapter. It should be remembered that the 
Croats and Slovenes, though members of the 
great family of Southern Slavs, have by no 
means as much In common with their Serb kins- 
men as is generality believed. Croatia and 
Slovenia have both educated and wealthy 
classes. Serbia, on the contrary, has a very 
small educated class and practically no wealthy 
class, It being said that there Is not a millionaire 
in the country. Slovenia and Croatia each have 
their aristocracies, with titles and estates and 
traditions; Serbia's population Is wholly com- 
posed of peasants, or of business and profes- 
sional men who come from peasant stock. As 
a result of the large sums which were spent on 
public instruction In Croatia and Slovenia un- 
der Austrian rule, only a comparatively small 
proportion of the population Is illiterate. But 



26o NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

in Serbia public education is still in a regrettably 
backward state, the latest figures available 
showing that less than seventeen per cent, of 
the population can read and write, a condition 
which, I doubt not, will rapidly improve with 
the reestablishment of peace. Laibach (now 
known as Lubiana), the chief city of Croatia, 
Agram, in Slovenia, and Serajevo, the capital 
of Bosnia, have long been known as education 
centers, possessing a culture and educational 
facilities of which far larger cities would have 
reason to be proud. But Belgrade, having been, 
as it were, on the frontier of European civiliza- 
tion, has been compelled to concentrate its 
energies and its resources on commerce and the 
national defense. The attitude of the people 
of Agram toward the less sophisticated and 
cultured Serbs might be compared to that of an 
educated Bostonian toward an Arizona ranch- 
man — a worthy, industrious fellow, no doubt, 
but rather lacking in culture and refinement. 
The truth of the matter is that the Croats and 
the Slovenes, though only too glad to escape 
the Allies' wrath by claiming kinship with the 
Serbs and taking refuge under the banner of 
Jugoslavia, at heart consider themselves im- 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 261 

measurably superior to their southern kinsmen, 
whose political dictation, now that the storm 
has passed, they are beginning to resent. 

The first impression which the Serb makes 
upon a stranger is rarely a favorable one. As 
an American diplomat, who is a sincere friend 
of Serbia, remarked to me, "The Serb has 
neither manner nor manners. The visitor al- 
ways sees his worst side while his best side re- 
mains hidden. He never puts his best foot for- 
ward." 

A certain sullen defiance of public opinion is, 
It has sometimes seemed to me, a characteristic 
of the Serb. He gives one the impression of 
constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder and 
daring any one to knock it off. He is always 
eager for an argument, but, like so many argu- 
mentative persons, it is almost impossible to 
convince him that he is in the wrong. The 
slightest opposition often drives him into an 
almost childlike rage and if things go against 
him he is apt to charge his opponent with in- 
sincerity or prejudice. He can see things only 
one way, his way and he resents criticism so vio- 
lently that it is seldom wise to argue with him. 

Though the Serb, when afforded opportuni- 



262 NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 

ties for education, usually shows great brilllanqr 
as a student and often climbs high in his chosen 
profession, he all too frequently lacks the 
mental poise and the power of restraining his 
passions which are the heritage of those peoples 
who have been educated for generations. 

In Serbia, as In the other Balkan states, It 
is the peasants who form the most substantial 
and likeable element of the population. The 
Serbian peasant is simple, kindly, honest, and 
hospitable, and, though he could not be 
described with strict truthfulness as a hard 
worker, his wife invariably is. Although, like 
most primitive peoples, he is suspicious of 
strangers, once he is assured that they are 
friends there Is no sacrifice that he will not 
make for their comfort, going cold and hungry, 
if necessary, in order that they may have his 
blanket and his food. He is one of the very 
best soldiers in Europe, somewhat careless in 
dress, drill and discipline, perhaps, but a good 
shot, a tireless marcher, inured to every form 
of hardship, and invariably cheerful and un- 
complaining. Perhaps it Is his instinctive love 
of soldiering which makes him so reluctant to 
lay down the rifle and take up the hoe. He has 



MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 263 

fought three victorious wars In rapid succession 
and he has come to believe that his metier is 
fighting. In this he is tacitly encouraged by 
France, who sees in an armed and ready-to- 
fight-at-the-drop-of-the-hat Jugoslavia a coun- 
terbalance to Italian ambitions in the Balkans. 
Though there are Irresponsible elements in 
both Jugoslavia and Italy who talk lightly of 
war, I am convinced that the great bulk of the 
population in both countries realize that such 
a war would be the height of shortsightedness 
and folly. Throughout the Flume and Dalma- 
tian crises precipitated by d'Annunzio, Jugo- 
slavia behaved with exemplary patience, dignity 
and discretion. Let her future foreign rela- 
tions continue to be characterized by such self- 
control ; let her turn her energies to developing 
the vast territories to which she has so un- 
expectedly fallen heir; let her take Immediate 
steps toward inaugurating systems of transpor- 
tation, public instruction and sanitation; let her 
waste no time In ridding herself of her jingo 
pohticlans and officers — let Jugoslavia do these 
things and her future will take care of itself. 
She Is a young country, remember. Let us be 
charitable in judging her. 



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